Library of Congress. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Chap... 
Shelf.. 



3Iho\ 

-JlSaS 



THE 



TEST OF TRUTH. 

BY MARY JANE GRAHAM. 



iEtitl) an Entioiuctt'oit lj 



REV. G. W. SAMSON, D.D. 



^jjilnhl|i|iin: 



AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

530 AECI1 STUEET. 



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INTEODUCTION. 



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The following brief treatise on " The Test of 
r< Truth" is a remarkable work. Its clearness of 
thought and closeness of reasoning, in contrast 
with the childlike belief and tender emotion which 



O 



clothes that thought and breathes through that rea- 
soning, make it seem an anomaly ; a product which 
cannot have come from one mind. Its masculine 
vigor and feminine tenderness divide the thought- 
ful reader's attention constantly as he pursues its 
reasoning, and gives to it a fascination inde- 
scribable. 

It is the work of a young woman twenty-four 
years of age; of Miss Mary Jane Graham, 
daughter of a plain business man of London, 
who was born at London April 11th, 1803, and 
died at Stoke Fleming, Devon, Dec. 10th, 1830, 

(3) 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

a little more than twenty-seven years of age. In 
.a letter to a friend, April, 182*7, she says, "I am 
sure that I am very old for my age. It is not 
common at twenty-four to feed upon the past as I 
do." Her biographer says of her work, "The 
Test of Truth," written at that time: "It will 
remind the reader of some of Mr. Scott's painful 
exercises of mind described in his ' Force of 
Truth/ and of the arguments so successfully 
handled by Bishop Burnet in his disputations 
with Lord Rochester." She must have been 
"very old for her age" whose acquirements could 
compare with those of those masterly minds at 
their maturest age ; and whose work has the 
added charm flowing from the emotion of a fe- 
male heart. 

It must have been a mind of no ordinary ca- 
pacity and culture that could have produced such 
a work in such early youth. "When but a girl, 
Mary had shown a peculiar fondness for the 
Mathematics ; and this love was so permanent, 
that she became the author of a practical treatise 
on Mathematical studies of great originality and 
merit. 2s~ext, mental science became her favorite 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

study; she had read " Locke on the Understand- 
ing" for the twentieth time ; and her letters contain 
most discriminating criticisms on Stuart and other 
writers upon Mental Philosophy. The branches 
which store the mind followed this disciplining 
study ; Chemistry, Botany, and the kindred sciences 
being so mastered that classifications from her 
own pen were written out. Studies which refine 
the mental powers were added ; she mastered the 
Latin, French, and Spanish so as to translate the 
"Vicar of Wakefield" into each of those tongues ; 
she read the Greek New Testament, and com- 
menced the study of the Hebrew of the Old 
Testament. Of music also she was passionately 
fond, and became such a proficient in it as to 
write a book of practical instruction on its scien- 
tific principles. Her intense fondness for study 
made her pursue even the abstruser branches in 
the midst of her severest sickness. 

In a true mind the religious sensibilities are 
earliest awakened; as they are the last to give 
true exaltation when the soul goes to enter upon 
its higher life. Very early in life Mary was de- 
vout in habit and thoughtful in spirit. Writing 
1* 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

in 182*7 to a friend, who doubted about childhood 
conversions, she says, "You appear, my dear 
friend, to think very early piety to be too wonder- 
ful a thing to be true. It is wonderful ; so won- 
derful, that when David was contemplating the 
starry firmament, he was drawn for a moment 
from his meditation on the wonders he there be- 
held by the still greater wonder of God's ordain- 
ing strength out of the mouth of babes. * * 
Jesus, too, once i rejoiced in spirit,' because God 
had 'hid these things from the wise and prudent, 
and revealed them unto babes.'" When just 
budding into womanhood, she for a time became 
fascinated with youthful amusements ; for in such 
a spirit as hers, the impulses of human nature are 
proportionate, and such a mind as hers throws 
itself with a perfect devotion into whatever arrests 
its attention. As a natural consequence, her 
heart being in the world, reason tried to justify 
her course ; and she fell into a state of doubt and 
despondency and almost desperation, from which 
it was impossible for a mind like hers to be extri- 
cated, except through an experience like that 
which she copied into her "Test of Truth." 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

The struggles of a strong will, conscious of its 
rebellion against the Father of Spirits, yet con- 
scious of its superior mental discernment, could 
end in submission to no authority but one more 
than human. A Divine revelation, the authorita- 
tive word of One more than man, was sought ; and 
nothing but the Bible offered any ground for 
claim to such an authority. The letter of that 
Word therefore became her study. Writing to a 
friend as to this period of her life, a month or 
two before her death, she says, "You may remem- 
ber my telling you that some years ago I declined 
greatly, almost entirely, (inwardly) from the ways 
of God, and in my breast was an infidel, a disbe- 
liever in the truths of the Bible. When the 
Lord brought me out of that dreadful state, and 
established my faith in his Word, I determined to 
take that Word alone for my guide. I read 
nothing else for between three and four months, 
and the Lord helped me to pray over every word 
that I read." Here are presented the two attri- 
butes of that spirit which glows in every sentence 
of the " Test of Truth ;" a spirit which makes it 
seem indeed to the inquiring reader, a very lamp 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

from Heaven, borne before him by one that has 
personally walked in his own dark path. 

The first attribute of that spirit is pray erf ni- 
ne ss ; the spirit of a subdued, tractable, docile 
and confiding child, bowing her will to a mind in- 
finitely superior, and to a love unspeakably greater. 
The Lord "helped her to pray over every word." 
If that word was divine, above human reason, only 
the Divine Spirit's aid could make her understand 
it ; and the motto of her " Test of Truth," therefore, 
is this : " Ask, and ye shall receive." Like David 
she ever after felt : "I love the Lord because he 
hath heard my cry ;" and "therefore will I call upon 
him as long as I live." Secret prayer became the 
delight of her life ; "I dedicate," she writes to a 
friend, "not always, because I am so light and 
unstable, but generally, one hour every evening to 
prayer, and principally to intercession ;" and then 
she goes on to speak particularly of the subject 
of her prayers during this hour, and of the 
" transports" she finds in the exercise. When a 
favorite cousin, or an attached schoolfellow, visited 
her, the day or the casual interview was always 
commenced with a chapter from the Bible and 






INTRODUCTION. 9 

prayer, in which " she would pour out her soul 
before her God with holy fervor and simplicity," 
as one of them writes. As a Sabbath-school 
teacher, she would have set times for prayer with 
one or more of her associates, and would remem- 
ber each pupil of their classes in separate peti- 
tions. Her " Test of Truth" was suggested by 
sympathy for some refugees from Spain, who had 
fled to England as an asylum, among whom she 
found " Yolney's Ruins" in Spanish, and who, as 
she perceived, through a natural action of the 
human mind, had gone, from loss of confidence in 
their own corrupt Church, to the other extreme 
of universal skepticism. It was for their sake she 
sought to perfect her Spanish ; it was for the 
Spanish translation she wrote the English " Test 
of Truth ;" over its pages she bowed again and 
again in fervent prayer as she wrote ; and when 
it was finished and sent them, she writes : "I have 
leaned upon the simple proposition, that God 
having promised in the Scriptures to give his 
Spirit to whosoever asks it with sincerity, must 
either keep his promise, or not be God ; and I 
have endeavored to show them that, according to 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

their own principles, they are without excuse if 
they neglect to seek their Creator in this manner. 
But even now, if it do not succeed, it has been 
a blessing to me ; it has been the cause of many 
prayers, of many sweet moments of communion 
with Jesus. I cannot therefore but hope that, in 
the time and manner which please Him, my prayers 
will be answered. n 

This submission of her gifted mind to the Word 
and Spirit of God, made the Bible her only au- 
thoritative guide in all her religious belief and 
practice. The book which was read and prayed 
over three or four months as her constant employ 
when the truth was first revealed, was nightly put 
under her pillow during her last sickness, that 
it might be the last thing in her hand before she 
slept, and the first when she waked ; and that 
favorite Bible was finally left as her most precious 
legacy to her mother, with the promise that she 
would read and pray over a chapter every day of 
her life. Every part of it to her penetrating 
intellect had its special value in the volume of 
complete truth : and what may surprise some 
minds, the book of Proverbs was a chosen study, 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

because Christ, the Divine Wisdom, there was 
heard to speak to her; and the Song of Solomon 
was a delight, because Christ, the Divine Love, 
was there felt to be wooing her. From the Bible 
alone she drew all her doctrinal views. To one 
who expressed uncharitableness toward those not 
thorough Calvinists, and who applauded Miss 
Graham's second work, entitled "■ Justifying and 
Electing Grace," she wrote only two months be- 
fore her death, and just after her work was pub- 
lished : " I do not myself so much as know what 
all Calvin's doctrines are. I have read one book 
of Calvin's, many parts of which pleased me much. 
* * I certainly did not form one opinion from 
his book ; for I had formed all my opinions long 
before from the Bible. * * Christ only should be 
our master, his Word our guide, and his Spirit 
our teacher ; and that Holy Spirit will be given 
us, if we ask for it." In her introduction to her 
work, " Justifying and Electing Grace," she refers 
to the Articles of the Church of England, of 
which she was a member, and explains her refer- 
ence to them in the body of her work, thus : 
"Not that any single doctrine can be either 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

proved or disproved from the Service or Articles 
of our Church; but having examined the doc- 
trine by Scripture, it is satisfactory to find our 
Church bearing her testimony to the truth of 
what the Scripture says." In the body of the 
same work, speaking of election, she says : " We 
contend not for the doctrine of election, as held 
by this or that particular sect, or even as handed 
clown to us in the strong and beautiful language 
of the Reformers of our Church ; but simply and 
solely as it is set forth in the very words of the 
Oracles of God, that is, in the words of God him- 
self." In treating of original sin, she refers to 
the words of the Service appointed for the Bap- 
tism of Infants ; but is specially careful to guard 
against being supposed to refer to this ordinance 
for any other purpose, as she says, than this : 
" Solely to show how our Church, in the baptism 
of infants, acknowledges the doctrine of original 
sin ;" adding, emphatically, as her own italics in- 
dicate : " Let no one so far misunderstand me, 
as to suppose that I think baptism is any thing 
more than the outward sign of regeneration, or 
the putting away of the filth of the flesh." Hence, 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

also, in her letters we find most discriminating 
views as to some sentiments of Mason, and even 
of Jeremy Taylor, which she regards unscriptural. 
In every duty, too, as in all doctrine, the Word 
of the Lord is her guide. In defending her devo- 
tion to her studies, to music, and other delights ; 
in disapproving of the theatre and the ball ; in 
devoting herself personally to going about the 
streets, visiting and ministering to the poor, read- 
ing and expounding the Scriptures (a duty most 
trying to her), in the workhouse and other neg- 
lected places ; and in writing in different lan- 
guages her " Test of Truth," her active efforts 
all seemed to her to be enjoined by the example 
and precept of her Master. 

The question can scarcely arise, after this survey 
of the spirit of Miss Graham, why should the 
American Baptist Publication Society be the or- 
gan to present Miss Graham's work to the public. 
Though an English lady, her memoirs and her 
two finished works have appeared from the Amer- 
ican press ; though an Episcopalian, the Presby- 
terian Board of Publication have edited and pub- 
lished her memoir ; and the " Test of Truth," the 
2 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

work of one maintaining and exemplifying in so 
peculiar a manner, the principle that the "Word of 
God, prayerfully studied, is to be implicitly fol- 
lowed, whether it uphold or overthrow any written 
creed of human device, — why should not the Bap- 
tist Publication Society be the organ for present- 
ing such a work to the American public ? In the 
closing paragraphs of her " Test of Truth," Miss 
Graham says : " Having formed my opinions solely 
by the Word of God, my attention was naturally 
attracted by the various sects of Christianity with 
which this land of toleration abounds. I be- 
long myself to an ancient church and find 
every reason to continue wdthin her walls. But 
in every sect which took the pure, unadulterated 
Bible for its standard, I perceived a small number 
of persons who desired no other happiness than 
the love of God. These, I observed, to whatever 
denomination they belonged, loved and understood 
one another, but were often hated and miscon- 
strued by the rest of mankind. If they differed as 
to some points of minor importance, they were, 
however, unanimous upon the grand essentials of 
religion. In this one point, especially, I found 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

them to be all perfectly agreed among themselves, 
and perfectly opposed to all other men ; they, with 
one consent, ascribed to Jesus the whole glory of 
their salvation, acknowledging no merit in them- 
selves which could possibly interest God in their 
favor." Abont the time the " Test of Truth » was 
written, her mind dwelt much on the subject of 
Christian nnion ; and her memoirs contain many 
letters prompted by her pious interest in it. To 
one friend who seemed to doubt about such union, 
after quoting Christ's prayer that his disciples and 
all that should believe on him through their word, 
might be " one," she acids : " Yes, and we all shall 
be one. * * May you be enabled to use more 
boldness at the throne of grace, to draw near in 
full assurance of faith, and claim what Jesus, who 
cannot ask in vain, has asked of the Father for 
you, a full and abiding enjoyment of that love to 
the brethren, that oneness with the saints, which 
is just as much yours as Christ is yours !" 

Had Miss Graham seen what we are now per- 
mitted to witness, she would have beheld not a 
" small number," but a large proportion of Christ's 
disciples cherishing this spirit. She might have 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

expressed, too, an added confidence, that Chris- 
tians are to be united not only in the " grace " 
but in the "truth," of which "we have all re- 
ceived" out "of his fullness." Paul could confi- 
dently exhort the disciples of Christ, in all time, 
to be both "of one heart" and "of one mind." 
And though anticipating differences, and obliged 
to write " Whereto we have attained let us walk 
by the same rule, let us mind the same thing," 
he could add, in reference to such praying spirits 
as she who wrote the "Test of Truth," "and if 
in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall 
reveal even this to you." Gr. W. S. 

Washington, January, 1859. 



PREFACE. 



In order to explain the division and arrange- 
ment of this little work, it may be proper to ob- 
serve, that it consisted originally of a few letters 
addressed to private friends. From these, the 
Author selected and arranged the first part with 
a view to publication. It was, however, sug- 
gested, that the arguments contained in that part 
lost much of their force by being deprived of the 
illustration afforded by the narrative : and ac- 
cordingly that also was prepared for publication 
as the second part of the work. The little 
volume thus formed, is presented to those per- 
sons, who either doubt, or wholly disbelieve, the 
sacred contents of the Bible. May the Spirit 
2* (1?) 



18 PREFACE. 

of Truth graciously condescend to use it as the 
means of convincing some of those whom he has 
ordained to eternal life ; of making them know 
the certainty of the Word of Truth; and of 
" calling them out of darkness into his marvelous 
light," 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 



PART I. 



LUKE xi. 9. 

ASK, AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 

I am not ignorant of the disadvantage under 
which I labor, in addressing a class of readers, 
who despise the Bible, with a quotation from the 
Bible Such a commencement carries with it an 
air both of unfairness and inconsistency. It 
looks like an attempt to assume the point in dis- 
pute, and to argue from a source which we have 
not yet proved to be genuine. Let me hasten to 
dispel a suspicion so unfavorable to a candid re- 
ception of the observations I am about to offer. 
Rational and philosophising skeptics ! in present- 
ing you with the above text of Scripture, I do 

(19) 



20 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

not ask you to receive it as the word of God ; 
but only to bestow upon it a little of that patient 
and courteous attention, which the word of one 
of your fellow-men might claim from you. You 
cannot, in justice to your own professions of can- 
dor and equity, refuse compliance with a demand 
so reasonable. 

Without further apology, I submit one of the 
sayings of Jesus Christ to your attentive consid- 
eration. I am far from any intention of pressing 
you with its divine authority, or insisting on a 
blind obedience. Upon its own merits let it stand 
or fall. 

My object in thus briefly addressing you, is not 
to convince, but to direct you to a method by 
which you may convince yourselves. With this 
design, I shall take nothing for granted but what 
you will be readily disposed to concede. I will 
suppose that it is yet a matter of doubt whether 
the Scriptures are the genuine and lively oracles 
of God, or the sordid, lying invention of man. 
Take, if you please, a still further advantage. 
Assume that appearances are strongly against 
their divine origin: that the external evidences 
of Christianity are insufficient — its internal proof 
unsatisfactory — its professors few and inconsist- 
ent — its opponents respectable both in number 
and talents — the objections against its, weighty 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 21 

and plausible — and all the arguments in its favor 
weak and inconclusive. I will further suppose 
that you are in earnest, when you assert that 
truth alone is the object of your search, and that 
you are ready to embrace it wherever you find 
it. I say, I will suppose you are in earnest. 
And truly I should offer an affront to your under- 
standings both as men and philosophers, were I to 
imagine you capable of viewing the subject in 
any other than a serious light. 

If then you refuse to believe the Bible, it must 
be because you can find no means of proving it 
to be true. It cannot be because you love to 
continue in darkness, in perplexity, in unbelief. 
Let me put the case that some infallible criterion 
were proposed to you ; some method of ascer- 
taining, by your own personal experience, the 
truth or falsehood of the Bible. May it not be 
inferred, that you would be eager to put it fairly 
to the test, and willing to abide by the result of 
your experiment ? 

Such a criterion I am about to propose to 
you. It is so simple, that a child may compre- 
hend ; so just, that a philosopher may approve ; 
and so forcible, that none who have fairly tried, 
have ever been found able to withstand it. Such is 
the saying of Jesus Christ to which I now invite 
your attention — " Ask, and it shall be given you." 



22 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

Who Jesus Christ was, or what degree of def- 
erence is due to his word, it suits not niy present 
purpose to inquire. I shall content myself with 
proving to you, that the saying now under con- 
sideration contains nothing in itself absurd or 
improbable. And having established this neces- 
sary point, I shall propose it to you as the 
touchstone of truth. I am fully aware of the 
proud self-sufficiency, with which unconverted 
men expect the mightiest truths to be brought 
down to the level of human reason. It shall 
therefore be my care, in the few simple proposi- 
tions which I shall lay before you, to introduce 
nothing which can too severely tax your belief or 
your understanding. 

You are, I hope, willing to allow, that this 
universal frame is the work of some Divine un- 
created Intelligence. You are not yet so thor- 
oughly debased in heart and intellect, as to be 
able to look round on the wonders of creation, 
without perceiving in them all manifest tokens 
of creating power. But I am prepared to make 
every allowance for the strength of your incre- 
dulity, or the dullness of your comprehension. If, 
therefore, I appear to you to have asked too 
much, I will be yet more moderate in my de- 
mands. It is enough for my argument, if you 
admit that the existence of God, if not cer- 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 23 

tain, is at least probable ; or if not probable, 
that it is at least possible. The various instances 
of deep design and exquisite contrivance which 
force themselves upon your notice on every side, 
will not suffer you to deny the possible existence 
of some great Designer and Contriver. Whether 
you look upward, at the innumerable starry host ; 
or downward, upon the insect that crawls be- 
neath your feet ; around you, on the beauteous 
furniture of the universe ; or within, upon the 
little world of thought and feeling that is stir- 
ring in your own bosom — whichever way you 
look, whichever way you turn, you are met by 
something, which compels you to acknowledge 
that the existence of God is no absurd or im- 
probable hypothesis. Even that man who wrote 
" atheist" under his name, was not, I am per- 
suaded, an atheist when alone. There is no 
such thing as an atheist in solitude. You may 
boast that you are one in the convivial cir- 
cle ; but you cannot support the character 
in your closet. There, God will find you 
out ; there, the unwelcome reality of his pres- 
ence will confound you. And not only so — 
but even in the height of social mirth, when 
surrounded by friends who sympathize and ad- 
mire, you dare to make merry with the name and 
being of God : — even then, a secret horror, a sad 



24 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

foreboding conviction will sometimes shiver 
through your frame, and you will feel in every 
pore that GOD IS, and that your puny efforts to 
annihilate him are vain. I appeal to the stoutest 
heart among you, whether I speak truth. You 
cannot quite divest yourself of the conviction — 
you know you cannot. God has not left himself 
without witness, even in your heart. There is ' 
a point at which incredulity itself must make 
a stand ; and that point is the existence of 
God. 

I take it then for granted, that some of you 
will admit the existence of Almighty God to be 
undeniably certain; many will own that it is 
probable ; and all will allow that it is possible. 

Neither will you be so hardy as to deny, that 
if there be a God, the highest happiness of his 
creatures must consist in knowing, and their 
highest duty in loving him. The maker of every 
grand and lovely object must be infinitely grand 
and lovely : and if to know his works be good, to 
know himself must be better than all. But if 
he be our Maker, if in him we live, and move, 
and have our being, then surely it must be our 
most urgent concern to know One with whom 
we have so much to do. If he be our Maker, do 
we owe him no service ? If our Benefactor, do 
we owe him no thanks ? If he be our Father, 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 25 

must we not love Mm ? If our Master, must we 
not fear him ? But how can we render service 
or thanks, love or praise, to an unknown Being ? 
We may indeed view him with a servile dread, 
for nature itself teaches us to shrink from that 
which we do not know. But we cannot serve 
God, till we know what he requires of us. We 
cannot thank him, till we know what he has done 
for us. We cannot love God, till we are ac- 
quainted with his thoughts and purposes toward 
us. Love, such as deserves the name, implies 
knowledge, communion, tried excellence, un- 
limited confidence. Those dark, shadowy, unde- 
fined notions which the Deist entertains of God, 
may cause a slight thrill of admiration, a tran- 
sient glow of thankfulness to pass across his bo- 
som ; but they will produce no real, substantial, 
enduring sentiment : they will never make him 
love. To know God must then be our highest 
happiness, whether we consider his intrinsic ex- 
cellence, or the relation in which we stand to 
him as his creatures. And as the Maker cannot 
but be infinitely greater than any of the things 
he has made ; so the knowledge of God cannot 
but be infinitely more desirable than the knowl- 
edge of his works. 

It is a self-evident proposition, that what is 
worth having, is worth seeking. If, then, the 
3 



26 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

knowledge of God be so well worth having, it 
must be proportionally worth seeking. No pains 
can possibly be too great to bestow on the at- 
tainment of such an object. I am not now speak- 
ing of the existence of God as undeniably estab- 
lished. I affirm that the bare possibility that a 
Being so glorious and beautiful exists, makes it- 
worth our while to leave the contemplation of 
every other glory and every other beauty, till we 
have either discovered this great original of all 
that is beautiful and glorious, or can give satis- 
factory proof that no such original exists. The 
bare possibility that there is a Being who stands 
related to us as Creator and Father, renders it 
an act of parricide, if I may so express myself, 
not to inquire after him, that we may fulfill the 
duties which those relations imply. 

Admit, then, that God is worth knowing, and 
you must also admit the inevitable consequence 
that God is worth seeking. Indeed, it would 
seem superfluous to dwell on either of these 
propositions, were it not that in our own little 
corner of God's universe, filled with a set of 
God's creatures, who style themselves reasonable 
beings, there are yet many who can find time to 
amass stores of human learning, — time to perfect 
themselves in all the wisdom of this world, — but 
no time or inclination to ask, " Where is God, my 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 27 

Maker, who teaclieth me more than the beasts 
of the earth, and maketh me wiser than the 
fowls of heaven!" However, let your actions be 
what they may, I do suppose that your under- 
standings will hardly refuse their assent to the 
proposition, that the knowledge of God, if we 
could attain to it, would amply repay us for any 
labor we might endure in the attainment. 

Neither will you be disposed to contradict my 
next assertion, that whoever this glorious being 
may be, the world is in a state of great ignor- 
ance and confusion respecting his nature and 
attributes, and the kind of duty and worship 
that is due to him from his creatures. A single 
glance at the various and absurd religions of 
mankind may suffice to convince us, that God is 
not universally, nor even generally, known upon 
the earth. Out of so many different gods, only 
one can be the true God. Out of so many dif- 
ferent religions, only one can be the right re- 
ligion. Perhaps you will say, all are equally 
wrong. Such an opinion does but add to the- 
force of my proposition. Whoever God is, it 
must be alike obvious, both to Christians and 
infidels, that the world in general knows very 
little about him. 

If you agree with me in what I have said, — if 
you admit that God is worth knowing, and that 



28 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

lie is worth seeking, in an infinitely higher degree 
than any thing else is worth knowing or seeking ; 
and if yon also perceive that mankind are in a 
state of ignorance concerning him,- — yon will 
deeply feel the importance of the inquiry I am 
about to propose. How, amidst this variety of 
conflicting opinions, shall I find out that which 
is right ? Or, if all are in error, where shall 
the truth be sought ? What possible means can 
I take, to become acquainted with God my 
Maker ? f 

Does reason, does common sense, suggest no 
answer to this inquiry F Do they not say, — 
Apply for information to the only Being who is 
likely to give it you. In plain terms, — none can 
know God so well as he knows himself. There- 
fore ask God. 

This method appears so obvious, so direct and 
natural, that it is difficult to conceive how any 
one can object to it, or hope to propose a bet- 
ter. Yet it is this very method which infidels 
will neither themselves seriously try, nor permit 
others to try, if they can help it. Let a man 
address himself in good earnest to prayer, and 
they will immediately set him down as a person 
of weak and shallow understanding, a mere su- 
perstitious driveler. Or, if he be known to pos- 
sess a powerful and commanding intellect, then 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 29 

they will lament with a sigh of benevolent re- 
gret, that so great a man should be deformed by 
so great a weakness. But if the praying person 
should carry his extravagance to such a height 
as to persuade himself that God hears him when 
he prays, and gives him what he asks for, — by 
what name will they designate such infatuation ? 
They waver between the terms hypocrite and 
madman ; or, perhaps, suspect that a combina- 
tion of these characters was needful to conduct a 
man to such a climax of absurdity. And all this 
contempt is excited, because a reasonable being, 
actuated by a reasonable desire to know the 
Author of his being, and by a reasonable per- 
suasion that none can teach him what he wants 
to know, so well as that Author, avoids every in- 
direct and circuitous method of obtaining the 
desired information, and applies at once to God 
for the knowledge of God. 

Why should it seem so unaccountable to pray 
to God ? Why so absurd to expect an answer to 
our prayers ? I could let you into the secret 
cause of that mingled pity and disgust with 
which you regard those who pray. But, for the 
present, I forbear. My object is to prove to 
you that their conduct is not quite so absurd as 
you imagine. To apply to God himself for the 
knowledge of God is a mode of proceeding per- 
3* 



30 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

fectly just and rational. It is so, whether you 
regard the existence of God as certain, or merely 
admit it to be possible. 

For, in the first place, if there be a God, he 
must be in full possession of the information you 
require. He cannot but know himself. He can- 
not but know himself better than any other being 
knows him. He, therefore, who desires to know 
any thing about God, and w^ould apply to one 
most thoroughly informed on the subject, must 
apply to God. This is inquiring at the fountain- 
head. All other plans, in comparison with this, 
appear indirect, far-fetched, and unnatural. 

2. It is also reasonable to suppose, that if 
there be a God, he must be capable of hearing 
all that his creatures say to him. Whether they 
address him with their lips, or only in the secret 
of their hearts, they cannot be addressing an un- 
conscious God. A God, and yet unconscious ! 
The thing is impossible. "He who made the 
ear, shall he not hear ?" He who formed the 
heart, shall he not know what is passing there ? 
If we speak to God, the probability of his hear- 
ing us is the same with the probability of his 
existing at all. On the other hand, the argu- 
ment — if you can find one — which shall prove 
God to be unconscious of any thing that we say 
or think, will at once set aside the being of God 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 31 

altogether. There is no God, — or, God knows 
all that is in my heart. One of these two prop- 
ositions must be true. However degraded and 
unworthy notions you may entertain of the Su- 
preme Being, you cannot, in these enlightened 
ages, imagine him to be ignorant of what is 
going on in a world of his own making. Should 
you, at any time, feel disposed to address him, 
you will not surely be deterred by the fear that 
he may be on a journey, and so out of the reach 
of your voice ; or asleep, and unable to listen ; 
or perplexed and encumbered with such a multi- 
plicity of affairs, that he will be too busy to 
attend. Despised Christianity has taught men 
to discard these idle notions. If, then, there be 
any absurdity in praying to God, it certainly 
cannot arise out of the circumstance of God's 
being incapable of hearing. 

3. It is sufficiently evident, that if God be 
able to hear our petitions, he is also able to 
grant them if he please. He who made our 
understandings at first, must be capable of il- 
luminating them. He who gave us such capaci- 
ties for knowing him, must be able to satisfy and 
fill up those capacities. What should hinder 
, him from conveying that information to us, if 
such should be his will ? Do you say that our 
minds are incapable of being informed on so dif- 



32 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

ficult a subject? You have no means of proving 
such an assertion. If you had, it would be in no 
way to the purpose, unless you could also prove 
that God cannot render them capable. Does it 
comport even with your own ideas of the Deity 
to affirm, that he has expended the whole of his 
creative power upon the mind of man, so that he 
really can do nothing more to improve or en- 
large it ? As rational creatures, we must be ca- 
pable of knowing our Creator ; and God, as our 
Creator, must be able to convey to our minds 
the knowledge of himself. 

4. Again, we Have every reason to believe 
that, as God is able, so he is willing to grant 
our petitions. You will, perhaps, tell me that it 
is presumptuous to imagine that a Being of such 
transcendant greatness should stoop from his 
high majesty to meddle with the paltry concerns 
of men. Now, I conceive, that since it was not 
inconsistent with the dignity of God to make us 
at first, we are warranted to conclude, that it 
will by no means derogate from his greatness to 
care about us when we are made. It argues a 
kind of puerile inconsistency, rather than god- 
like majesty, to make man, and then throw him 
aside without further thought of what happens 
to him. But this objection takes its rise from 
the narrowness of your own understanding. Be- 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 33 

cause you cannot attend to a great many things 
at a time, you think God cannot. Do not let 
comparisons of this nature mislead yon. Be 
assured that God's powers of attention cannot, 
with any propriety, be measured by yours. His 
mind can neither be oppressed by a variety, nor 
encumbered by a multiplicity, of objects. Wit- 
ness this universe which he has created. Nor is 
his greatness of so fragile and perishable a na- 
ture, that it can receive any injury by stooping 
to the lowest or meanest object. The little dig- 
nitaries of the earth may fear to attend to little 
things, lest they should appear incapable of what 
is great, or should really neglect it : for they 
cannot attend to the one without neglecting the 
other. It is not so with God. Do you say that 
he will not stoop to mind little things ? Look 
around you. Behold what minute attention he 
has bestowed upon thousands of objects which 
to us appear small and insignificant ! See how 
curiously he has painted the wings of the butter- 
fly ! How softly he has pencilled the cups of the 
snowdrop ! Let the little daisy, which you care- 
lessly tread under foot, declare who shaped its 
many leaflets, — who tipped them with crimson, 
and placed in the midst a circle of gold. Which 
of the birds has God forgotten to feed ? Which 
of the insects that dance in the sunbeam has he 



34 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

left unfinished for want of time, or because of 
their insignificance ? How has he descended 
from his majesty to give lessons of wisdom to 
the little ant and the bee ? In the whole king- 
dom of nature we cannot perceive one instance 
of hasty inattention, or of supercilious dignity. 
God has forgotten nothing, — he has despised 
nothing. How can we conceive then that he 
should forget or despise us ? Why should the 
prayers of his rational creatures alone escape his 
notice ? Why should their souls be too insignif- 
icant to attract his benevolent attention? Be- 
sides, what should induce you to suppose that a 
soul is a small or valueless thing in the sight of 
God ? Think you that he has laid out so much 
wisdom upon making and informing a thing of 
little worth ? He has made us capable of know- 
ing him. This marks our value in his sight, — 
for nothing can be worthless that is capable of 
knowing God. And it affords us a sufficient in- 
timation, that if we ask God for the knowledge 
of which he has made us capable, he will be will- 
ing to give it to us. We cannot be accused of 
offering an unreasonable petition, when we de- 
sire only to know Him who made us ; for, with- 
out this knowledge, we might as well have been 
made, in all respects, like the irrational crea- 
tures. 



THE TEST OE TRUTH. 35 

5. But not only are we justified in supposing 
that God is willing to teach us, we have also 
every reason to infer that he is more willing to 
instruct those who pray, than those who do not 
pray to him ; to bestow his gifts upon those 
who appear desirous of obtaining them, rather 
than upon those who set on them no value what- 
ever. For a creature not to seek the knowledge 
of his Creator is a neglect, which bespeaks him 
to be sunk in the most besotted stupidity and 
the vilest ingratitude. To revel in the gifts and 
forget the Giver, or to remember him with indif- 
ference ; to thirst after earthly wisdom, and yet 
to have no ardent aspirations after Him who is 
the fountain of true wisdom, argues such gross 
perverseness and inconsistency, that we cannot 
much wonder if God should leave those who are 
guilty of it, to grope in their own beloved ignor- 
ance. But to pretend that we aspire to know 
God, and yet to neglect even the effort of asking 
him to teach us, — this is, indeed, to add to all 
our other crimes that barefaced hypocrisy which 
can scarcely impose upon men, and openly insults 
God. Little as we know of this infinite Being, 
the secret instinct which he himself has planted in 
our hearts may teach us, that he will not prob- 
ably bestow his most precious gifts without some 
expression of desire on our part. He may rea- 



36 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

sonably expect that we should not show our- 
selves quite insensible to our need of this divine 
teaching; and may justly conclude, that what 
we do not choose to solicit, we do not desire to 
obtain. 

But, I think I hear you reply, — Shall I offer 
such an insult to the omniscience of God as to 
imagine that he needs to be informed of my 
wants ? Who requires you to entertain so ab- 
surd a supposition? We do not tell you that 
prayer is necessary for God's information, but 
for your relief. He may know all your wants, 
and yet require that you should have a sense of 
them, and should express that sense to him be- 
fore he will grant you a supply. He may know 
that prayer — as the means of softening, hum- 
bling, and purifying your heart — is not the least 
pressing of your necessities. He who has made 
you capable of receiving consolation by pouring 
out your troubles into the bosom of a friend, 
may be willing that you should enjoy the infi- 
nitely superior relief of confiding your wants and 
sorrows to the ear of his mercy. None of these 
suppositions are impossible or improbable, even 
upon your own notions of the Deity. Inasmuch 
as you believe that God is a distinguished and 
a benevolent Being, they are far more probable 
than the contrary supposition. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 3T 

You reason more justly on points which affect 
jour temporal interests. You do not refuse to 
plow and sow, to plant and water, because God 
already knows that you want the fruits of the 
earth, and ought therefore to give them to you 
without your wearisome toil. You care not to 
spend many an anxious hour in the acquisition 
of useful knowledge, because God knows that it 
would be very useful to you, and is therefore 
bound to instill it into your mind without your 
pains. No ; in these things your worldly inter- 
est or pleasure is concerned. You have a real 
desire for them. And, therefore, instead of sit- 
ting down to philosophize on the part that God 
ought to take on the occasion, you immediately 
set yourself to do w^hat you can, and employ, 
without hesitation, whatever means seem best 
suited to your purpose. 

Prayers seem to be the only direct and rational 
means of obtaining the knowledge of God. For 
there is no other Being in the universe to whom 
we can apply with such certainty of not being 
misled. Yet truly you will not pray to God, be- 
cause he needs none of your information. Let 
me tell you, that if you really longed to acquaint 
yourself with God, the sense of your need would 
wring from you the most earnest supplications ; 
nor would you be at leisure to consider whether 
4 



38 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

or not von were conveying to him a piece of 
superfluous information. The heart that is 
touched with a desire to know God, will be lift- 
ing itself up in prayer while others are reason- 
ing upon the propriety of so doing. 

Again, I would remind you, that although God 
is not ignorant as to how much we need to be 
rightly informed about him, yet the state of the 
world affords sufficient proof that he has not, in 
all cases, relieved this necessity ; so that his per- 
fect knowledge of our wants does not, as an in- 
evitable consequence, and without any applica- 
tion on our part, produce the relief of our 
wants. Besides, you have already waited some 
twenty, thirty, forty years. All this time God 
has been aware of your need of instruction; yet 
you are still in a state of doubt and ignorance. 
Surely you have waited long enough to see whe- 
ther God will grant a spontaneous relief to your 
necessities. It is now high time to employ 
■means for the attainment of your wish. And 
since prayer has been shown to be the most 
likely and natural means, let me advise you at 
once to try what prayer can do for you. At 
all events, you will not then have to reproach 
yourself with having lost the best blessing in the 
universe for want of asking. 

6. But, lastly, whatever be the result of your 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 39 

prayers, they certainly cannot leave you in a 
worse condition than before. For supposing 
even that God should refuse to grant your pe- 
tition, it is of all things the most unlikely and 
inconceivable that he should take a malignant 
pleasure in thwarting your desires, by giving you 
the very contrary of what you ask. Should he 
refuse to give you knowledge, he will not at 
least visit you with an increase of ignorance 
and delusion. The argument with which Jesus 
Christ urges this subject, if not divinely uttered, 
is, to say the least of it, the most wise, appro- 
priate, and convincing that ever fell from the 
lips of man or angel. 

" If a son shall ask bread of any of you that 
is a father, will he give him a stone ? or if he ask 
a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent % 
or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a 
scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know 

HOW TO GIVE GOOD GIFTS UNTO YOUR CHILDREN, 
HOW MUCH MORE SHALL YOUR HEAVENLY FA- 
THER give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 

HIM ?"* 

The simple majesty of this appeal must find its 
way to every bosom. It must be felt by all, 
whose hearts have throbbed with a parent's love 

* Luke xi. 11—13. 



40 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

or whose wants have been supplied by a parent's 
bounty. It applies to the ideas which the Deist 
entertains of God, as well as to those which are 
cherished by the follower of Jesus. According 
to your own notions, (if notions you may be said 
to have where all is so vague and indistinct,) you 
reject with abhorrence the idea, that God who 
made and who preserves you, is an JJnnatural 
Father, who with wanton cruelty would thwart 
the noblest aim, and cast down the most reason- 
able hope, of his own offspring. Such a character 
of God_ is not to be found in the wildest ravings 
of impiety. Could any one believe this of God, 
despair would soon prey upon his existence. 
Yet this principle you indirectly maintain, this 
solemn insult you offer to the character of God, 
when you assert that habits of prayer lead to 
enthusiasm. Not only so, but you outrage the 
common sense and common feeling of mankind, 
which declare, as by an instinct implanted by the 
Giver of life himself, that a father cannot turn the 
petition of his child into derision. But you say, 
that the great, the original Father, can and does 
act .thus in opposition to his own universal law. 
You say, that when his children ask bread, he 
mocks them with a stone ; when they implore 
food, he offers them nought but the scorpion's 
venom. When a man, deeply impressed with a 






THE TEST OF TRUTH. 41 

sense of his ignorance, asks of God the knowl- 
edge of his holy will ; no sooner does he betake 
himself to this way of gaining information, than 
you cry out, that he is possessed with the spirit 
of delusion and enthusiasm. The more earnestly 
and frequently he entreats God to give him light 
and truth, the more deluded you think him ; that 
is, {for it will bear no other interpretation) , you 
think that God derides the requests of his crea- 
tures, and forces them deeper into the maze of 
ignorance and error, for no other cause but be- 
cause they have stretched out their hands to him 
to extricate them. Ye who profess to make 
reason your guide, tell me, was it reason that led 
you to this conclusion ? Where will you find in 
the Bible any mode of arguing half so absurd as 
this is ? 

A brief recapitulation of the above observations 
may not be unnecessary. We have remarked, that 
God must be in full possession of the information 
we require — that he must be able to hear us 
when we pray to him — able to give us what we 
ask — that we have great reason to infer that he 
is willing to hear and teach us — more willing to 
teach those who ask him than those who do not ask 
him — and lastly, that be the result of our appli- 
cation what it may, it cannot leave us in a worse 
state than we were in before. From all these 
4* 



42 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

things I infer, that to seek the knowledge of God 
by prayer is no absurd or irrational mode of pro- 
cedure : nay more, that the expediency of prayer 
is in the same ratio with the probability of God's 
existence. Or, to accommodate myself to the 
lowest degree of belief; the very slightest possi- 
bility that there is a God, affords an equal pos- 
sibility that he may instruct us in answer to our 
prayers, and therefore renders the act of prayer 
reasonable and expedient. The saying of Jesus 
Christ — "Ask, and it shall be given you:" — 
" God will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask 
him :"* is not only the voice of the Bible, but the 
voice of reason, the voice of nature, and therefore 
the voice of God. 

But we have hitherto considered this saying 
only in itself. I propose, secondly, to consider 
it in connection with the book in which it is 
written, and to propose it as a fair and sufficient 
test of the truth or falsehood of that book. 

It appears, from the common confession of 
Christians and infidels, that the world is, to say 
the least, not very well furnished with the knowl- 
edge of its Maker. Nothing, therefore, which 
offers the smallest hope of obtaining light upon 
this momentous subject, ought to be passed over 
without inquiry. A book has been handed down 

* Luke xi. 9, 13. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 43 

to us, professing to be a revelation from God 
to man, and offering him all the knowledge of 
which he stands in need. This book is by some 
blindly embraced, for the very same reason that 
would have induced them, under other circum- 
stances, to have adopted the Alkoran, the Shas- 
ter, or the Zendavesta. Others profess to receive 
it upon rational grounds of conviction, and to 
hold actual communication with the Deity who is 
revealed in its sacred message. A third party 
reject the book altogether, and cast it from them 
with every mark of contempt. With these last 
I would now speak. Do not reject even the 
Bible, till you have put its truth or falsehood 
fairly to the test. But you say, "How are we to 
try it ? All the evidence we meet with appears to 
us insufficient. We refuse to give credit to the writ- 
ings of the Apostles. We never saw the miracles 
they relate ; they are not therefore calculated for 
our conviction. Such things are contrary to our 
experience, shock our common sense, and we write 
" imposture" upon them all. As for the revela- 
tion they pretend to have received from God, 
that revelation never came to us. We are in no 
respect benefitted by it. If God will have us to 
believe as they did, he must reveal himself to us 
as he did to them. We cannot receive the thing 
at second-hand. When the God of the Scriptures 






44 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

shall favor us by revealing himself to us ; when 
he shall afford us some infallible test whereby we 
may prove that his word is true ; then we will 
open our minds to conviction. But till then, we 
must retain our doubts upon the subject. 

Such is the reasoning we repeatedly hear from 
the lips of infidels. I will not now stop to ad- 
mire the happy self-complacency with which you 
boldly pronouce a thing to be impossible, because 
it has never happened within the little span of 
your experience ; and unreasonable, because it 
surpasses the narrow bounds of your understand- 
ing. Neither will I pause to extol the spirit 
with which, as a creature, you think proper to 
dictate to your Creator. Waiving all considera- 
tion of the terms in which you express yourself, 
I admit the general truth of your proposition. 
I am persuaded that you never will believe the 
Scriptures, till God himself " opens your under- 
standing to understand the Scriptures." And I 
tell you that these same Scriptures contain an 
abundant provision against the difficulties you 
have raised. They offer you ample means of 
proving, by your own personal experience, 
whether they be true or false. That immediate 
revelation ivhich you profess to desire, is actu- 
ally promised to you, upon the simple condition 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 45 

of your asking for it. "Ask, and it shall be 
given you."* 

What is the gift here promised ? It is no 
other than " the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, 
who shall guide you into all truth." " For every 
one that asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh 
findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be 
opened. For if ye, being evil, know how to give 
good gifts unto your children, how much more 
shall your heavenly Father give His Holy 
Spirit to them that ask him ?" 

Take Jesus Christ at his word. The expe- 
riment is at once simple and decisive. Should it 
fail, you will then have some reason to reject the 
Bible. Truth, immutable truth, is one of the 
attributes, which reason and Scripture concur in 
ascribing to God. We cannot form to ourselves 
the conception of a God who can lie. To divest 
God of his attribute of truth, is to strip him of 
his Godhead ; to bring him down to a level with 
ourselves. The Bible makes this a grand distinc- 
tion between God and man : " God is not a man 
that he should lie." "He is ever mindful of his 
covenant" — but they, like men, "have trans- 
gressed the covenant. "f 

• See the Author's interesting and satisfactory application 
of this Test to her own case, pp. 98 — 110. 

f Num. xxiii. 19. Psalm cxi. 5. Joshua vii. 11 . 



46 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

Here then the question is brought within a 
very narrow compass. If the Creator of the 
universe be the same God who is revealed in the 
Scriptures, he cannot but honor his own word of 
promise. He has pledged himself: he cannot 
but redeem his pledge. Every attribute of the 
Deity binds him to the performance of his prom- 
ise. His name, his great and terrible name is 
dishonored forever in the sight of men and 
angels, if he fail to fulfill this word which is 
passed, and cannot be recalled : " God will give 
his Holy Spirit to them that ask him." Such is 
the Scripture account. If it be false, you have 
an easy way to detect its falsehood. If true, it is 
in your power to convince yourself of its truth. 
Put to the test this bold assertion. Ask your 
heavenly Father to give you his Holy Spirit. 
If your prayer be granted, the Bible, with all its 
rich proffers of present peace and eternal happi- 
ness, will become your portion and reward for- 
ever. If, on the contrary, your ardent, persever- 
ing prayers should bring down no supplies of 
light and knowledge from above, then you may 
not only, with great justice, pronounce the Bible 
to be an impudent imposture, but you will be 
justified in doubting whether there be any God 
at all. 

I would press this upon you, because no ex- 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 4T 

ternal evidence, however satisfactory, is of itself 
sufficient to produce conviction. The truth must 
be written by the finger of God upon your hearts. 
It must be the result of your own actual and per- 
sonal experience. " No man can say," from the 
heart, "that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy 
Ghost." If you believe in Jesus, it must be be- 
cause God has revealed Jesus in your soul. This . 
revelation is promised by God to all that ask 
him. Upon slighter grounds you ought not to 
believe such momentous truths. With less than 
this, you ought not to be satisfied. Permit me, 
before I quit this subject, to urge you, by a few 
unanswerable arguments, to put the Bible to this 
test. The task might almost appear superflu- 
ous ; but the perverseness of the human heart is 
beyond conception, and requires to be combated 
where it would be least suspected of resistance. 

First, then, I would remark to you, that there 
is something in this saying which stamps on it an 
air of conscious honesty and veracity. An art- 
ful person would hardly have committed himself 
so grossly. A liar would have hesitated to ex- 
pose himself to such immediate detection. An 
impostor would not willingly have courted such 
close examination. Those who forge the current 
coin of the realm are the least likely to furnish 
us with a method of distinguishing the counter- 



48 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 



feit. If I wished to palm upon you a fictitious 
account of any person, that person himself would 
surely be the last to whom I should choose to 
refer you for the truth of my account. Still 
more absurd would such a reference be, if I knew 
that it was in the power of the said person in- 
stantly to detect and expose my falsehood.- But 
the Bible gives you an account of God, and then 
refers you to God himself for the confirmation 
of that account. Nor is this one of those rant- 
ing, contemptible appeals to the Deity with 
which men will sometimes seek to cloak their 
falsehood, or to vent their enthusiasm. It is a 
calm, sober, deliberate assurance, founded on the 
benevolence and wisdom of the Divine Being. 
Foreseeing all the doubts and difficulties which 
would obstruct the reception of his gospel, Jesus 
himself vouchsafes to point out a ready way of 
arriving at the truth. He founds his arguments 
on the strongest and most universal principles of 
natural religion. Would you know whether he 
is indeed a teacher sent from God ? He refers 
you to God himself for an answer. He declares 
to you that you cannot believe him to be the 
Lord but by the Holy Ghost. At the same tim^ 
He solemnly promises that his Holy Spirit shall 
be given to you upon your asking. 

Try now whether he is able to keep his prom- 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 49 

ise, or not. Whoever God is, lie will not refuse 
to instruct you at your request. Or should he 
refuse, he will not at least lend himself to delude 
and ensnare you. Jesus tells you that his doc- 
trine is the bread of life. Should it, on the con- 
trary, prove to be nothing better than a stone or 
scorpion, be assured that your heavenly Father 
will not force it upon you, when you ask him for 
bread. 

The next remark I would offer for your con- 
sideration is, that however secure you may think 
yourself in your rejection of Christianity, it is 
possible you may be mistaken. I say, it is pos- 
sible that you may, after all, be in the wrong. 
Nofr all your security can reach so far as to pre- 
clude this possibility, and what an eternity of 
despair does it involve ! Your judgment is not 
infallible. If you think you have no proof that 
the Scriptures are divinely inspired, you know 
assuredly that you have no proof to the con- 
trary. A mistake here is no trifling matter. 
You had better play the fool on any other sub- 
ject than on this ; for, should things turn out 
contrary to your expectations, you will bitterly 
curse your folly. The idiot, the madman, may 
sport with this tremendous uncertainty ; but the 
wise man will consider every possible contin- 
gency. I repeat, that it is possible your con- 
5 



50 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

tempt of the Bible may be unfounded. Place 
this as far off as you are able. Still you cannot 
deny that it is possible. 

Reflect, now, I beseech you ; on another possi- 
bility, which hangs on the one I have just men- 
tioned. It 2's possible that you may one day 
stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Should 
such an event take place, what excuse will you 
offer for having rejected the Gospel, when Jesus 
himself pointed out to you so simple and unfail- 
ing a test of its truth ? Will you not stand con- 
demned even in your own eyes ? Will not con- 
science upbraid you with the incredible infatua- 
tion with which you refused to give the Word of 
God a fair trial ? Say, — will not your rejection 
of the test I now offer you, if, (which God for- 
bid !) you do reject it — will not this be a dread- 
ful aggravation of your crime ? You cannot 
plead ignorance, when knowledge was offered 
you at so easy a rate. You cannot plead uncer- 
tainty, when so ready a way of solving every 
doubt was pointed out to you by Him who will 
then be your judge. You might have asked, and 
received. You might have sought and found. 
Then will you justly be left to ask and to seek in 
vain. Now Christ says : "Ask, and it shall be 
given unto you." Reject his offer — and this 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 51 

very word which he has spoken to you shall 
judge you in that day. 

Not only will you then appear without excuse 
before God, but, whether the Bible be true or 
false, if you refuse to try it by this criterion, you 
are now without excuse before men and your 
own conscience. Such a refusal speaks for itself. 
It says, " I love darkness rather than light ; I 
will not come to the light, lest my deeds should 
be reproved."* It says to the Almighty, " De- 
part from me, for I desire not the knowledge of 
thy ways.""}* Such conduct is not founded in 
reason, for reason forbids us to condemn what 
we have not tried. It is not supported by phi- 
losophy, for it is her character to use every 
possible means for the discovery of truth, and 
the detection of error. It is not consistent with 
honesty, for what can be more dishonest than 
to plead the absence of sufficient proof as a rea- 
son for not believing ; and yet, when that proof 
is offered, to decline taking the necessary steps 
for its attainment ! It is easy to perceive the 
secret spring of a refusal which is equally incom- 
patible with the dictates of reason, philosophy, 
and honesty. You do not wish to have your 
prejudices removed. You have chosen error, 

* See John iii. 19, 20. f See Job xxl U. 



52 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

and you hold it fast. You would rather not 
know any thing about Him that made you. 
Self is your idol, and how can you desire to 
become acquainted with One whose presence in 
your soul would destroy all self-pleasing and self- 
exaltation forever ? 

However, we have a right to expect that, if 
you will not make trial of the truth of Christ's 
word, you will at once confess, that all your 
boasted candor and philosophy were mere pre- 
tenses, held forth to conceal the foul reality of 
your enmity against God. Till you have tried 
this test, the terms fanaticism and delusion may, 
with far greater reason be used to designate 
your rejection, than our belief, of Christianity. 

Again, supposing the Bible to be false, you 
lose nothing by having brought it to this touch- 
stone. The trial, if it should fail, will but leave 
you just as you were before. Nay, it will be so 
far an advantage, that you will have the pleasure 
of detecting a barefaced fraud ; and you will be 
effectually freed from those secret misgivings 
which you cannot now altogether exclude. 

On the other hand, if the Scriptures be true, 
how immensely will you gain by the experi- 
ment ! Instead of a few vague, ill-defined no- 
tions of God, you will be able to say: "I know 
in whom I have believed;" "this God is my 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 53 

God forever and ever;"* — your short-lived 
snatches of unholy mirth will be exchanged for 
a " joy with which no stranger internieddleth ;"f 
— your cold and sullen fortitude, for a peace 
which the world can neither give nor take away ; 
— your comfortless prospect of annihilation, for 
a hope full of immortality. 

The last consideration I shall urge upon you 
is, that this is the only fair test by which the 
Bible can be tried. For, if you refuse to be 
guided by this criterion, there is but one other 
to which you can possibly recur. You may, if 
you please, bring the Scriptures to the bar of 
human reason, and reject them because you find 
many things you do not comprehend, and many 
that you do not approve. But these grounds of 
rejection are insufficient. 

For, in the first place, if the Bible be true, its 
Author is God. Now there is between your 
mind and the mind of God an inconceivable 
distance. It is extremely probable that many 
things may appear to his infinitely comprehen- 
sive understanding in a light totally different 
from that in which they are viewed by your nar- 
row and limited reason. To use the words of 
the Bible itself, it is possible that "God's ways 

* 2 Tim. i. 12 ; Psalm xlviii. 14. f Prov. xiv. 10. 

5* 



54 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

may not be as your ways, nor his thoughts as 
your thoughts."* If, then, His Book should turn 
out to be somewhat different from the Bible you 
would have written, I really do not see that this is 
a sufficient reason for rejecting it. Consider the 
vast difference of ideas which inequality of intellect 
creates between two beings of the same nature, 
— a child and a man. Set before a little child 
the Elements of Euclid, or the Principia of Xew- 
ton. Will they not be foolishness to him? Or 
present him with the last Debates in the Houses 
of Parliament, and request his opinion upon the 
disputed point ; the justness of the arguments in 
its favor, or the force of those that were opposed 
to it. Is he capable of forming a correct esti- 
mate of these things ? But they are matters that 
do not immediately concern him. Well then let 
me propose that you acquaint him with the plans 
you may have formed for his education and for- 
tune ; the studies he will have to pursue, with 
their different degrees of usefulness ; the snares 
that will be laid for his youth, and the anxieties 
that await his manhood. When you have finished 
your statement, let the young reasoner be called 
upon to give his ideas on the subject, and point 
out how far your remarks meet with his approval. 

* Isaiah lv. 8. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 55 

All this appears very absurd to you. But it is 
without comparison more absurd to fancy your- 
self capable of judging of the authenticity of 
God's word, by its agreement or disagreement 
with your own most imperfect notions. 

Notwithstanding the child's incapacity of judg- 
ment, he is in one respect a better reasoner than 
yourself. Strange and unaccountable as your 
sentiments must sometimes appear to him, he 
does not therefore reject them as absurd or un- 
true. He knows that it is owing to the imper- 
fection of his own mind that things appear so 
differently to him from what they do to you. 
This feeling sense of his own infirmity is his best 
preservative from error. But you cannot bring 
yourself to confess that the judgment of God 
may often differ exceedingly from your judgment) 
nay, that they may be directly contrary the one 
to the other. You cannot condescend to be in- 
ferior to God, and to learn of God ; submitting 
your mind to his, as a little child submits his mind 
to the mind of his father. 

Yet between the understanding of the child and 
the man, there is no such great difference. It is 
but the distance between finite and finite ; between 
worm and worm. Between man and God — between 
finite and infinite, between the mind that thinks 
and the mind that creates thought j who shall 



THE EBSI 01 TRUTH. 

calcul difference ? It is immeasurable, 

bra* filiation would _ . 
but it is too mighty for her. TT 
it by another incommensiu 

— ■■ Surely as tfl are higher than 

ij Ffl th nights higher than our 

thoughts, and Poor, 

pitiful, narrow-minded ei are ! 

I:' God does but gi I ri 

:han our 
:'. or appreciate that mind, 
d mean and short-si- 
Yet we presume to think of niea- 
g the Infinite, of comprehending the L 
prehensible mind c : We bring the Omnis- 

cient the bar of human judgment ; and 

t upon h: ssing himself according to 

our petty and varyir._ ;. y! 

It is not then any argument against a book 
said I ::tten by God. if : I ] contain 

many things above, am .-parently contrary 

to, th of man. For we are infinite^ 

: judging of what ought or oug 
: mind c :han an infant is to d 

:he thoughts and council- it emi- 

nent d or philosopher. 

- :e Isaiah lv. 9. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 57 

But you will perhaps reply, that supposing you 
had written a book expressly for the use of your 
child, you would have taken care to accommodate 
it to his capacity ; and that it is reasonable in 
like manner to infer, that if God had written a 
book expressly for our use, he would have 
stooped to the narrowness of our understandings. 
I admit the justness of your inference. But 
permit me to make another supposition. Put 
the case that you had written a book for your 
child's use, and that you were to warn him before- 
hand that he would find many things too difficult 
for his unassisted comprehension ; which things, 
if he would ask you, you would render perfectly 
intelligible to him. Would the child then have 
reason to complain that the meaning of the book 
was obscure to him ? Surely no't. Now this is 
what the Bible assures you that God has done. 
He has written a book for the use of men, which 
by reason of their imperfect and incorrect views, 
they cannot of themselves understand. He has 
told them that if they will ask of him, he will 
make it plain and intelligible to them. Whether 
this account be true or false, can only be ascer- 
tained by making the experiment. It seems at 
least worth trying. 

But again, we have two books besides, which 
we know can have no other author than God — 



58 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

the book of Creation, and the book of Provi- 
dence. Do these contain nothing difficult to be 
understood, nothing that we cannot easily recon- 
cile with our ideas ? Rather — do we not meet 
with obscurities and apparent contradictions in 
every page ? 

Is not the book of Xature incomprehensible ? 
How unaccountable to our ideas, that the bury- 
ing of a dry diminutive seed should be followed 
by its resurrection in the shape of a lovely flower, 
or stately tree ! How strange that one day 
should behold the lifeless caterpillar wrapped in 
a winding-sheet of its own making, and the next 
should present it to us winged with life and 
beauty, the gayest of the fluttering creation ! 
There is not in the whole book of Nature, a 
single line that is legible to us from beginning to 
end. We can read enough to wonder and adore, 
but not enough to understand. 

And as for the book of Providence, are not its 
contents still more dark and mysterious ? Does 
it not contain ten thousand articles, which to our 
weak judgment appear absolutely inconsistent 
and contradictory ? How often are the righteous 
visited with one affliction after another, while the 
wicked are not in trouble as other men ! " They 
are full of substance, and leave the rest of their 
treasure to their babes ;" but the righteous are 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 59 

poor and oppressed. These are some of the 
seeming incongruities of the book of Providence. 
They are by no means the most remarkable. To 
us it often appears a string of paradoxes. 

If now a third book be offered to us, even the 
Bible, professing also to be from God ; shall we 
deny that it is genuine, merely because it is marked 
by the very same peculiarities of style, which dis- 
tinguished the other works of the same Author ? 
Surely this remarkable coincidence of style is 
any thing rather than an objection to its authen- 
ticity. 

When you object to the Bible on the ground of 
its being opposed to your reason, we have yet an- 
other cause to doubt, whether reason is at all to be 
relied on in the matter. For if you look round 
upon all the kingdoms of the earth, and observe 
the absurd degrading notions which men entertain 
of the Deity, you will perceive that the human 
mind is little capable of forming sublime or even 
reasonable notions concerning him. As you too 
profess to be guided by unassisted reason, you can 
scarcely be sure that your ideas of God may not 
be just as remote from the truth as those of the 
ignorant savage, who says to a stone, " Thou art 
my God." You will tell me, that you have the 
superior advantages of an enlightened philosophy 
and a cultivated intellect. I fear this argument 



60 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

will not stand you in much stead. For what were 
those gods, who in the opinion of the enlightened 
and cultivated nations of Greece and Rome " in 
high Olympus ruled the middle air "? They were 
a set of mere men, loose and unprincipled men ; 
with rather more than human power, and less than 
human virtue. These enlightened and philoso- 
phical nations conceived " that God was altogether 
such an one as themselves." If your ideas are 
more rational than theirs, it is not because you 
are naturally better informed than they were ; but 
because some of your notions have been refined 
from the grossness of their sensuality by that de- 
spised system of theology, the Bible. Their ex- 
ample may warn you how little reason can avail 
us in searching after the Almighty. A few of the 
wisest of them perceived that they were wrong, 
but confessed that all their philosophy was insuffi- 
cient to find out what was right. With these, the 
Maker of the universe, if not Jupiter or Saturn, 
was still "the unknown God." Yet they had the 
same reason to guide them : the same helps (un- 
less you will acknowledge the Bible to be a help), 
that you have in the present day. Can you tell 
us why you should hope to succeed, where they so 
egregiously failed ? Reason, in the case of every 
nation in the world, has proved a blind guide ; 
can you tell us how it comes to pass that she 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 61 

should, in your individual case, prove so wonder- 
fully clear-sighted ? May not the ideas of God 
which reason has taught you, be just as wide of 
the truth as her suggestions to the Heathen na- 
tions, whom she persuaded to " change the glory 
of the incorruptible God into an image made like 
unto corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed 
beasts and creeping things ?"* And if you can- 
not be sure of the correctness of your notions, is 
it safe to reject the Bible, merely because it does 
not coincide with those notions ? 

Once more : if you repeat that you cannot be- 
lieve the Bible, because its contents appear absurd 
and contradictory to you : we reply, that this is 
no more than the Bible itself has foretold. " The 
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
of God, for they are foolishness unto him ; neither 
can he know them, because they are spiritually 
discerned, "f Let me again put the case home to 
your own experience. Suppose you had written 
a treatise on some particular subject, and had dis- 
tinctly and repeatedly declared, that to a certain 
description of readers, destitute of a certain degree 
of information, your book must, from the very na- 
ture of the thing, be incomprehensible, and even 
wear an appearance of glaring absurdity ; would 

* See Romans i. 23. f See 1 Corinthians ii. 14. 

6 



62 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

you not think yourself unfairly dealt by, if your 
performance were to fall into contempt, because 
those very persons whom you had declared incom- 
petent to judge, were to assure the world that they 
had read it, and found it both obscure and ridicu- 
lous ? But let us further suppose, that you had 
not only forewarned these people of the incapacity 
they labored under, but had also pointed out a 
method by which they might accpiire sufficient 
knowledge to enter into the meaning of your work 
and to estimate it at its real value. Would you 
not accuse them of tenfold disingenuousness, in 
decrying your production without giving them- 
selves the trouble of examining it by the method 
you had proposed ? 

This disingenuous, this unphilosophical pro- 
ceeding, is the very counterpart of your own con- 
duct with regard to that book, upon which, for 
any thing you have yet proved to the contrary, 
your eternal happiness or misery may depend. 
The Scriptures offer themselves to you as the 
Word of God. They assure you, that sin has so 
blinded and depraved your reason, that you are 
incapable of affixing a just meaning, or a true 
value, to their sacred contents, until that reason is 
informed and enlightened by the Spirit of God. 
They instruct you how to obtain this divine illu- 
mination — "Ask, and it shall be given you." 



THE TEST OP TRUTH. 63 

Now let us observe your mode of proceeding. 
You set about judging the Bible by that very fac- 
ulty, which the Bible has declared to be incapa- 
ble of judging correctly. This you do, in the face 
of the united testimony of every age and nation, 
to the utter incapacity of reason as a guide to re- 
ligion. You not only neglect, but absolutely de- 
spise, the offer which the Bible makes you of di- 
vine teaching : though common sense, common 
feeling, and experience, concur in proclaiming its 
necessity. And then, with consummate assurance, 
you step forward and inform the world that you 
have fairly examined the Bible, and proved it to 
be a mere "cunningly devised fable." Is this fair 
and open ? Is it just and reasonable ? Is it wise 
and judicious ? 

It appears, then, from the vast difference which 
must be supposed to exist between our minds and 
the mind of God ; from the analogies that we may 
gather from his Creation and Providence ; from 
the confusion and ignorance of the whole world 
respecting him; and from the accounts which the 
Bible gives of its own nature and purpose ; that 
the unassisted reason is not capable of deciding 
upon its truth or falsehood. The criterion is ab- 
solutely unfair and inapplicable; alike condemned 
by common sense and common honesty. A deaf 
man is no very accurate judge of sounds ; nor is 



64 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

a blind man adapted to decide upon the merits of 
a picture. Even so is human reason utterly inca- 
pable of discerning the beauty and glory of the 
sacred page, until the same Almighty power which 
created that reason, is pleased to shine into and 
enlighten it. Now if there is the smallest hope 
that so great a blessing may be had for the ask- 
ing, what madness and perverseness will it argue 
on our parts, to decline making the attempt ! 

That I may preclude every possibility of misap- 
prehension, let me add a very few words as to the 
nature of this asking or prayer, and the answer 
which may be expected to it. 

And first, as to the nature of prayer. I need 
hardly tell you that it must be sincere. No 
promise is made to the mere asking of the lips. 
You may thus ask wisdom of God, and when he 
makes you no answer, you may triumphantly de- 
clare that the Scripture promise is broken. This 
may pass current with your fellow men. Bu^ it 
will neither deceive yourself nor God. Con- 
science will bear witness that you have not really 
prayed. The Searcher of hearts is insulted by 
such lip petitions. To grant themwould.be to 
part with his omniscience. 

Xor is it enough that the desire after knowl- 
edge be sincere. It must also be fervent. In- 
deed it is difficult to imagine the one without the 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 65 

other. For if we desire a thing in proportion to 
its value, then by how much the knowledge of God 
is better than any earthly knowledge, by so much 
ought the fervency with which we long for it, to 
exceed the fervency of our desires after any earthly 
object. The soul that is really thirsting after her 
Maker, her God, the proper centre of her desires 
and hopes, will thirst after him with a degree of 
ardor and fixedness, of which no earthly longing 
can convey an adequate idea. The hungry man, 
fainting for want of food ; the thirsty traveler, 
languishing for water ; these are but poor and 
inexpressive emblems of the soul that is hunger- 
ing and thirsting after God. To desire God 
coldly, and other objects with eagerness, is such 
an inversion of the right order of things ; it is so 
immensely to undervalue the only thing which 
cannot be prized too highly, that we can hardly, 
without arrogance, expect that God will conde- 
scend to such faint desires, or fulfill such lukewarm 
petitions. I believe that the faintest wish, if 
sincere, will not pass unnoticed by Him who 
"despiseth not the day of small things." But if 
our longings after such an unspeakable good be 
not intensely excited, we have every reason to 
question their sincerity. To desire God without 
intenseness, seems more inconsistent than not to 
desire him at all. We may desire a trifle faintly ; 
6* 



66 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

for our wish is in proportion to its value. But to 
desire the living God ; the Original of all wisdom, 
excellence, beauty, glory, and felicity ; and yet not 
to burn and throb with uncontrolable longings of 
the soul after him ; this is an anomaly, which 
can only be met with in a guilty and a fallen 
world : and it proves at how low a rate the very 
best and wisest of mankind value God. The 
Spirit of God must both excite and satisfy this 
longing. The more we ask. the more we shall 
desire, and the more we shall be satisfied. 

I conceive then that this asking implies sincere 
and fervent desire. It is the asking of the heart, 
and to such only is the promise made. " Then 
shall ye seek me. and find me. when ye shall 
search for me with all your heart. "* 

Suffer me now to direct your attention for a 
moment to the answer, which may be expected to 
such asking as I have described. On this head 
I have two brief cautions to offer you. 

1. You have a right to expect a convincing 
answer to your prayers ; but you have no reason 
to expect that it will be miraculous. I do not 
mean to say that God cannot, if he please, con- 
vince you by a miracle. This, however, is not 
his ordinary method of dealing with his creatures. 

* Jer. xx*x. 13. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 67 

He who once brought light out of darkness, with 
the words — " Let there be light," — now sends 
forth " the sun every morning like a bridegroom 
out of his chamber,"* and he gives light to all 
the world in the ordinary course of nature. So 
He, who caused the first beams of the Sun of 
Righteousness to shine miraculously upon man- 
kind, now illuminates the hearts of men by the 
ordinary process of inward, rational conviction. 
It is fitting that it should be so. We are reason- 
able creatures ; and our understandings must be 
convinced ere our hearts can be converted. No 
outward miracle can effect this ; but only the in- 
ward miracle of opening the heart to attend, and 
the mind to understand ; of dispelling the dark 
mists of ignorance, prejudice and error, that be- 
night the soul ; and above all, of abolishing that 
enmity to God which is the secret and bitter root 
of all unbelief. Perhaps what I am now saying 
seems strange and mysterious to you. I will enter 
no further into the subject. Only try the experi- 
ment I have proposed to you, and you will under- 
stand all this and much more. 

I would, in the second place, caution you not to 
expect an immediate answer to your prayers. 
Here again, we may gather, from the analogy of 

* See Psalm xix. i, 5. 



68 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

God's dealings with us in temporal things, some 
idea of what we are to expect from him in spiritual 
things. Every process in the works of Nature, and 
in the development of mind, is carried on by slow 
and sometimes imperceptible degrees. We sow 
our seed ; but we must wait with patience till his 
sun and rain have brought it to perfection. Yet 
we do not the less confidently expect an abundant 
crop, because we know that it will not spring up 
in a single night. Again, in acquiring any of the 
arts and sciences, how many tedious processes we 
have to pass through ! Yet we are not so foolish 
as to throw them aside in despair, because we 
cannot master them in a few hours. And reason- 
ing from analogy, we have no ground to expect 
that the knowledge of God will be the growth of 
an hour : or that so mighty a blessing will be 
showered down at the very first request we deign 
to offer. Consider, I beseech you, how long God 
has been waiting upon you with this invitation. 
Wonder not if he keep you waiting for a time in 
your turn. But this will be as he pleases. I 
only mention it, lest any who have really begun 
to pray should feel discouraged at perceiving no 
immediate benefit from their prayers. God has 
nowhere promised to answer us so suddenly. But 
he will not keep us waiting without bestowing on 
us so much light and strength as will encourage 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 69 

us to persevere. " tarry then the Lord's lei- 
sure ; be strong, and he shall comfort thine heart ; 
wait, I say, on the Lord."* 

I close this part of my subject with the advice 
of the prophet — " Halt no longer between two 
opinions." If the Jehovah of the Scriptures be 
God, serve him : but if the God whom Deists 
have fancied to themselves be God, then serve 
him. I have pointed out to you a way of decid- 
ing the question. Bring the Scriptures to the 
touchstone of truth. " The God who answers 

PRAYER, LET HIM BE GOD."f 

"Ask, and it shall be given you." Ask sin- 
cerely, fervently, per sever ingly. If you thus 
ask, and receive not — I consent that you shall 
renounce the Bible forever. If you ask and 
receive, then will the Bible become your everlast- 
ing heritage, the very joy and rejoicing of your 
heart. Then will you bless the day that led you 
to the "Test of Truth." 

* Psalm xxvii. 14. t 1 Kings xviii. 21-24. 



THE TEST OE TRUTH. 



PART II. 



LUKE xi. 9. 

ASK, AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU. 

I cannot behold a person who doubts or dis- 
believes the truth of Christianity, without feeling 
drawn toward that person with a tender and 
pitying interest, as if he were my brother or dear 
friend. My heart is linked to his by an irresisti- 
ble sympathy. Should this appear mysterious, I 
can easily explain the mystery. I have been in 
the same situation myself. I "know the heart" 
of an unbeliever; his doubts, his objections, his 
disgusts, have all passed through my own mind. 
I enter into every particular of his feelings. If 
he is a sincere doubter — I mean, if he really de- 
(70) 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 71 

sires to find out the truth, I can comprehend all 
the agony of suspense, the horror of approaching 
eternity in the dark, which he now experiences, 
and which none but those who have felt can figure 
to themselves, even in idea. But my sympathy 
with such a doubter is also one of glad anticipa- 
tion. I enter into his future feelings, and rejoice 
in the light and peace which are certainly pre- 
pared for him, though now they are hid from his 
eyes. J know that "an understanding shall one 
day he given him, that he may know Eim that is 
True." "If any man wishes to do the will of 
God, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it 
be true, or whether Jesus Christ spake of him- 
self."* Of this I am assured, both because it is 
God's promise, and because lie has fulfilled that 
promise to me. "ire has brought me out of the 
horrible" abyss of doubt and unbelief, "and set 
my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." 
And oh that while I endeavor to speak of his good- 
ness toward me, "many may see it, and fear, and 
put their trust in the Lord !"f 

I thank my God that I have been permitted, by 
bitter experience, to enter into this growing ca- 
lamity of my fellow-men. Not only hare the 
doctrines of Christianity been stamped upon my 

* John vii. 17. t $ cc P^lm xl. 1-3. 



72 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

soul with a certainty greatly enhanced by the 
strict and suspicious scrutiny, to which they have 
every one been subjected, but an intenseness is 
added to my prayers, and a liveliness to my hopes, 
for this class of wanderers from God, which 
nothing but a fellowship in sin and suffering could 
have produced. I can spread their miserable 
case before the Lord, with the happy conviction, 
that the same power which was displayed on my 
behalf, is ready to be stretched out on theirs. 
And when unbelief whispers — Can these men be 
brought to the knowledge of the truth ? My 
very soul burns within me, as I appeal to my own 
experience, that nothing is too hard for the Lord. 
May the Lord my God guide my heart and my pen, 
whilst I attempt to delineate the process, by which 
"he called me out of darkness into his marvelous 
light." 

My chief aim is to demonstrate the success 
which will invariably follow a sincere and candid 
application of the "Test of Truth." If I can 
persuade others to try the same method, I shall 
have gained my point. I seek not to answer ob- 
jections. They are innumerable, as the turnings 
and windings of the human heart. Even with 
those who are sincere in their search after truth, 
the most trivial of these objections, though con- 
futed again and again, will present itself with 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. T3 

renewed difficulty. The source of doubts and 
objections must be dried up. The " evil heart of 
unbelief" must be removed. He who will make 
trial of the " Test of Truth/' shall have a ready 
answer to all objections. He shall know by his 
own experience that every word of the Bible is 
true. 

To you, doubters and unbelievers of every 
description, I address myself. Many of you will 
esteem me a fool for my pains. I am content that 
you should think thus of me, so long as the wis- 
dom of God is foolishness in your eyes. But my 
God often " chooses the foolish things of this 
world to confound the wise." This emboldens me 
to hope that, if you will give me a candid and 
patient hearing, I may, with his blessing, be able 
to suggest some reflections which may prove useful 
to you. As God has opened my understanding, 
so I believe that he is able and willing to open 
yours. If once he shine into your dark hearts, 
how will unbelief, and pride, and prejudice, give 
way before the brightness of his presence ! How 
joyfully will you submit to those deep counsels of 
God, which you now cast from you with scorn ! I 
did not learn them of myself, neither can you. 
" Flesh and blood cannot reveal them unto you ;" 
but my Father and your Father which is in 
heaven, both can and will, if you desire it of him. 



74 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

I look with confidence on your behalf to Him, 
whose office it is to "lead the blind by a way that 
they know not; to make darkness light before 
them, and crooked paths straight."* 

From a very early age, my mind had been deeply 
impressed with a sense of the importance of re- 
ligion. I knew something, not only of the form, 
but of the spirit of prayer. With a very indis- 
tinct view of many of the doctrines of Christianity, 
I was yet enabled to walk with God in sincerity, 
and without any considerable declension during 
the greater part of my childhood, and the com- 
mencement of a riper age. 

Nor can I now speak decidedly as to the time 
or manner, in which a kind of careless stupidity 
about every tiling connected with religion began 
to steal over my soul. When this first became 
susceptible, it occasioned me great uneasiness. 
But I soon forgot it in the studies and vanities 
incident to my age. Ere long, I had learned to 
live "without God in the world," — to shut him 
out of all my thoughts. Pride and self-love, 
which had, I doubt not, long been secretly under- 
mining the vitality of my religion, now became 
the motive — the allowed and cherished motive — 
of all my actions. My former feelings were at 

* Isaiah xlii. 16. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 73 

first remembered as an indistinct dream, then 
wiped, as with a sponge, from my memory. It 
may appear strange, that one who had ever tasted 
the power of religion conld so soon cast off its 
influence ; for all this was effected in the space of 
a few months. It is strange ; and it affords a 
proof of the strange depravity of the human 
heart, when left to its own workings. Yet as this 
book may come under the eye of some who have 
fallen in the same manner, I will, for their sakes, 
endeavor briefly to trace the origin of my declen- 
sion. Similar cases may have operated in pro- 
ducing theirs. 

I think that I had no sufficient view of the 
nature and universality of sin. The sin of par- 
ticular actions and thoughts would often affect me 
very deeply. But I had little idea of the general 
sinfulness of my nature, and of my own utter 
helplessness ; or at least that idea had for some 
time been growing very indistinct. In conse- 
quence, I set my guard, as it were, against this or. 
that particular sin, instead of taking the whole 
body of sin to God to be subdued and destroyed. 
I am inclined to believe that other young persons 
besides myself, have derived injury from some 
parts of a work, which has, on the whole, been 
eminently useful; I mean Doddridge's "Rise and 
Progress of Religion in the Soul." I had read 



76 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

in that work, long before the period of my 
thorough declension, an earnest recommendation 
to the young convert to enter into a solemn cove- 
nant with God by a written form or dedication. 
I drew up an instrument of this kind, and fancied 
I had bound myself to God's service in such a 
way that I could now never forsake him. But 
when I found myself daily coming short of the 
resolutions I had made, I began to be filled with 
a kind of slavish dread of God. I could no longer 
come before him as his child. I felt as if I had, 
by breaking my own voluntary covenant, dissolved 
or weakened the bond which united me to him. 
Again and again I sought his presence, and with 
tears renewed my engagements : but every renewal 
of this formal dedication was made under circum- 
stances of fresh discouragements, and with dimin- 
ished confidence in the strength of Christ to carry 
me through the performance of it. Thus I gradu- 
ally declined from the law of liberty into the 
spirit of bondage and fear. I believe that these 
ineffectual struggles paved the way for my ap- 
parently sudden and unaccountable dereliction. 
Whenever self-dependence creeps in, there is rea- 
son to expect that we shall be left to discover that 
self is a broken reed, which can but pierce and 
betray the hand that trusts to it for support. 
But I purposely hasten over this period, the 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. fT 

mention of which was necessary to throw some 
light over the future part of my narrative. The 
state of things I have described could not last 
long. I became dissatisfied with the pleasures 
and pursuits in which I had promised myself so 
much gratification, and began again to wish to 
turn to religion for comfort. But alas ! I had no 
longer a religion. I had refused to give glory 
unto the Lord my God ; now my feet were left 
to " stumble upon the dark mountains;' 7 I had 
forsaken the Rock of my strength : I was now to 
try the firmness of my own sandy foundation. 

The doctrine of the divinity of Christ had be- 
fore been occasionally a source of doubt and per- 
plexity to me. It now become odious to my proud 
heart, and utterly shocking to my carnal reason. 
To satisfy myself on this point, I examined the 
Bible again and again. The result was an entire 
conviction, that if there was any truth in the 
Bible, Jesus Christ was the self-existent Jehovah. 
But so great was the difficulty I had in consenting 
to this doctrine, that I immediately began to 
doubt, whether there was any truth in the Bible. 
I suspected, that a system of religion which in- 
volved such apparent absurdities, could not possi- 
bly come from God. Determined to sift the 
matter to the utmost, I eagerly acquainted myself 
with the arguments for and against Christianity. 



78 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

My understanding was convinced that the Scrip- 
tures were divine, but my heart refused to receive 
the conviction. I was unwilling to believe. The 
more my reason was compelled to assent to their 
truths, the more I secretly disliked the doctrines 
of the Bible. 

At length I resolved for the present to lay aside 
the subject altogether. I persuaded myself, that 
there must be many flaws in the evidence for so 
strange a history, and, that if I had not as yet 
penetration to discover those flaws, it was only on 
account of my youth, and the immaturity of my 
reasoning powers. It may be thought that my 
former religious sentiments would leave behind 
them a relish and inclination for the tenets of 
Christianity. On the contrary, they seemed to form 
a great, an insuperable obstacle. It is evident, 
thought I, that I have hitherto been living under 
the unresisted dominion of prejudice. These 
opinions were imbibed, before I could possibly 
form any judgment upon their truth or falsehood. 
I have ever since blindly submitted to their guid- 
ance ; endeavoring to feel or to fancy all that the 
advocates of enthusiasm told me I ought to feel. 
I must guard against this bias, which my early 
associations have induced. From the very same 
cause, I should probably in another country have 
stood forth the zealous worshiper of Brahma, or 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. T9 

the furious disciple of Mohammed. Thus I rea- 
soned with myself. Alas ! I knew not then, that 
the secret, yet determined, bias of my heart was 
against Christianity. I had forgotten that " the 
carnal mind is enmity against God." 

I looked then upon my former devotion as the 
dream of an idle superstition. This circumstance 
was perpetually recurring to my memory, and 
redoubled my suspicions of the creed in which I 
had been brought up ; so that, humanly speaking, 
there was no system of religion, which had so 
little hope of a candid examination from me as 
the Bible. I will not at least be the slave of 
prejudice. I will not wear these trammels, merely 
because they were imposed upon me in my child- 
hood. I will think and examine for myself. 

The following considerations restrained me 
from communicating my perplexity to a single 
being. In the first place, I thought that to 
whomsoever I might open my mind on the sub- 
ject, they would not fail to endeavor to bias me 
one way or the other. In the next, as I was not 
quite sure that the Scriptures were false, I feared 
to be the means of raising or confirming doubts 
in the mind of any other person, lest I should 
ultimately discover that I had been fighting 
against God. I therefore resolved to keep my 



80 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

own counsel ; to exhibit, for the present, no out- 
ward difference of conduct: only avoiding, as 
much as possible, the discussion of religious sub- 
jects. In the meantime I determined to devote 
myself to those studies which tend most eminently 
to invigorate the reasoning faculties, and give to 
the mind a habit of sound thinking and correct 
judgment. Thus I hoped at some future day to 
renew the examination, take n clearer view of 
things, and effectually guard against being made 
the dupe of a " cunningly-devised fable." Vain 
and presumptuous fool ! I had yet to learn that 
"the wisdom of this world is foolishness with 
God;" and that man cannot, by his own unas- 
sisted searching, find out the Almighty to perfec- 
tion. Yet, even in this circumstance, I would 
gratefully recognize the wisdom and the good- 
ness that have followed me all my life long ; for 
though my studies were now but an additional 
snare to me, yet they afterward, under God's 
blessing, were of considerable use to me in my 
researches after truth : or rather in enabling me 
to detect the fallacies which had misled me. But, 
at present, I was trusting in them; and how 
could they be otherwise than a curse to me ? 

These abstruse pursuits had an effect on my 
mind which I had not anticipated, but which, at 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 81 

the time, occasioned Hie little regret. I began to 
delight in them so much for their own sake, that 
they withdrew my mind altogether from the grand 
subject of my inquiry. Instead of using them as 
a preparative for future examination, I fled to 
them as a refuge from the busy speculations which 
had so long tormented me. I buried thought in 
them, as the drunkard buries it in his cups : not 
that I could, at all times, shut out serious reflec- 
tion. These fits of mental intoxication had their 
intervals ; and bitter intervals they were. But I 
pacified conscience with the plea, that I was only 
laying aside present inquiry to resume it under 
more favorable circumstances. When I should 
deem myself fit for the momentous scrutiny, was a 
point reserved for decision at some indefinite pe- 
riod. On one or tw T o occasions, I experienced a 
return of religious feeling ; and felt inclined to 
submit, though with the temper of a slave rather 
than of a child, to the yoke of the Gospel. But 
at these times, a temporary dread of consequences, 
or that undefinable softness of mind which afflic- 
tion induces, operated much more than any heart- 
felt conviction of the truth. I sought to appease 
conscience by doing many things. I was busy, 
but not devotional ; and my fit of ill-judged zeal 
soon evaporated. 

With the exception of these transient interrup- 



82 THE TEST OF TROTH. 

tions, I continued this course for many months ; 
but at length God in mercy arrested my downward 
progress : and the reflections of a few hours pro- 
duced a total revolution in my views and desires, 
though I was yet to wait a long time ere I arrived 
at the knowledge of the truth. I had been look- 
ing out on the starry heavens ; and from the con- 
sideration of these wondrous luminaries, was nat- 
urally led to reflect on the immense stretch of in- 
tellect by which man has been enabled to make 
them the objects of his knowledge; to measure 
the distances, the orbits, the circumferences of the 
planets : to trace the eccentric path of the comet, 
and foretell the period of its return. In an instant 
— with the rapidity, but not with the transientness 
of the lightning's flash — the thought broke in 
upon me— "What signifies the knowledge of all 
these things, so long as man knows not God who 
made himV 

I had never sunk so low in the scale of being, 
as to entertain a suspicion that I could exist with- 
out some great Intelligent Cause of my existence ; 
and yet the conviction that there was a God, now 
seemed to flash upon me for the first time. It was 
as though I had gotten a new idea, and a new 
sense to perceive it by ; and this idea was so tre- 
mendously awful and important, that it well nigh 
overwhelmed me. The amazing folly and brutish 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 83 

stupidity of mankind, and of myself in particular, 
in taking pains to acquaint ourselves with the 
works of God, and yet crawling on in contented 
ignorance of God himself, appeared so utterly 
shocking to common sense and common decency, 
that I could scarcely believe my own existence in 
such a world, and amongst such a race of fellow- 
madmen, to be any thing more than a frightful 
dream. At first, I could only behold the folly, 
narrowness and meanness of my conduct. To 
have loved and sought what is beautiful in the 
creature, and yet not to have cared to be ac- 
quainted with the original, the Fountain-head of 
beauty — the Mind, whence every form of love- 
liness emanated, and which must itself be the 
perfection of beauty : to have admired the grand 
and sublime, without casting a thought upon Him 
whose mind is the birth-place of sublimity and 
grandeur : to have dwelt with rapture on the 
wisdom of my fellow-creatures, without seeking 
to know Him who gave them this general wisdom, 
as a little drop out of the infinite ocean : to have 
examined and pored upon the workings of my 
own intellect, without inquiring after the Father 
of intellects — "the God of the spirits of all 
flesh :" and to have admired the exquisite forma- 
tion of the body, without asking by whom it was 
"so fearfully and wonderfully made:" to have 



84 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

forgotten the Giver in his gifts — the Creator in a 
minnte portion of his works : to have embraced 
the shadow and rejected the substance ; idolized 
the copy and despised the original ; provided for 
time and neglected eternity ! Could a creature 
so groveling, so alive to all that is petty and 
mean, and so wrapped in a dull and senseless in- 
difference to all that is great and worthy — could 
this creature be styled a rational, a thinking be- 
ing ? And was this man, in whose exalted intel- 
ligence I had but now been glorying ? Oh, far 
more gross than the brutes which perish ! For 
the very "ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his 
master's crib ;" but man hath an owner — a mas- 
ter — a Creator ; and he knows nothing about 
him ! and he is content to know nothing about 
him ! If the works of creation be so beautiful 
and glorious, how surpassing in beauty and glory 
must be the God of creation ! The mind which 
created my mind and myriads of others, and which, 
still unexhausted, is ready to produce myriads 
more, is this mind worth knowing ? Or rather, 
who but an idiot would care greatly about know- 
ing any thing else ? How low, how impertinent, 
how wide of the purpose are the dissertations of 
men upon truth and wisdom and knowledge ! 
Why do they not seek truth and wisdom and 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 85 

knowledge in Him in whom they all centre ? 
Why seek them in the little streamlets of the 
world, when they might go to the Ocean, the 
the Fountain, the Original ? Do men know that 
there is a God ? Have they the slightest suspi- 
cion of the fact ? Can they know, and not care ? 
Can they suspect, and not lay all things aside till 
they have ascertained ? Can they think or talk 
of any thing else, so long as this point remains 
undecided ? 

But what have I myself been about all this 
time ? How is it that I am but now beginning 
to ask — " Where is God my Maker ?" I feel my 
want of God as though it was a new thing ; as 
though I might not have known all along, that 
this was the great, the only want of a rational 
creature. It seems as if a thick mist had passed 
from before my eyes ; as if, after a long and 
dreadful madness, I were just restored to sanity. 
And surely it must be thus. I have been labor- 
ing under a madness, a delusion ; now I am 
awakening to a perception of the object of. my 
existence. God is the object of my existence. 
There is nothing worth knowing, there is nothing 
worth caring for, but God. that I knew how 
to find out God ! 

But while I was thus looking back with amaze- 
ment at the folly of my conduct, another and 



86 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

a more appalling reflection came to deepen my 
perplexity. This was, the wickedness of my 
conduct. My unnatural and monstrous ingrati- 
tude stared me in the face. If there be a God, 
then to endeavor to know and love and obey 
him, must be not only the happiness, but the 
indispensable duty, of his creatures. The ties 
of blood, the dearest relations and amities of life, 
must be a mere cobweb thread compared with 
the ties which ought to bind the soul formed, to 
Him who formed it — the relationship which must 
naturally be supposed to exist between the 
created, and the Creating Spirit. Have I not 
done my utmost to sever those ties ? Have I 
loved God ? Alas ! how could I love an un- 
known Being ? But have I tried to know him ? 
What were my former endeavors ? Let me not 
mock God by calling them endeavors. They 
deserve not to be once named as the act of a soul 
aspiring after its God. My life should have been 
one continued act of obedience and thankfulness : 
but I have scarcely thought of inquiring into his 
commands, or of reflecting upon his mercies. 
The true object and motive and centre of my soul 
must certainly be. the love of my Creator. But 
I have in some way or other lost sight of this, 
and found out for myself an object, a motive, a 
centre, altogether sordid and abominable, and this 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 87 

is no other than the love of self. If I have never 
broken ont into any open wickedness : if I have 
kept up a tolerably correct and amiable appear- 
ance to my friends, it has been solely owing, (at 
least for many months past,) to a sense of shame, 
or an inordinate self-esteem. This taught me to 
put on a fair and decent outside ; but within, all 
was hollowness. The inward abominations of 
my heart have been indulged without a scruple. 
I have drunk up /iear£-iniquity like water. If I 
have hitherto escaped the reproaches of an ac- 
cusing conscience, it has been, because this same 
principle of self, while it rendered me exceeding 
sharp-sighted to the defects of others, blinded me 
to my own. 

I now clearly perceived two things ; that sin 
was the cause of all the misery in the world ; and 
that the essence of sin, however different in kind 
or degree, was the same, and consisted in a gene- 
ral habit of averseness to or alienation from the 
great Author of our being. Moreover, I saw 
that this sin pervaded every particle of our 
natures, and every moment of our lives. The 
mere moralist appeared to me the most daring 
sinner, the most senseless inverter of things. For 
he presumes to boast of his performance of the 
little duties of life, while the great duty, the one 
duty, is left out of the account. How ridiculous 



88 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

to imagine that we can be good parents, children, 
subjects, when we are not good creatures ! This 
is to suppose that a watch will go well, when the 
main-spring is broken ; or a stream flow, when 
its source is dried up. Xow, the sins of my life 
seemed to pass in review before me. I perceived 
that their peculiar malignity consisted in this — 
that they proceeded from a soul regardless of its 
Maker. Let what would be the action, enmity 
to God was the sin of it. My acts of unkinclness 
and neglect to my fellow-men, struck me as so 
many demonstrations of despite or indifference to 
Him who gave them being. It was not as they 
were my fellow-creatures, but as they were his 
creatures, that I was bound to love them and 
bear with them, and do them good. Had I loved 
the Creator, my love to his creatures would have 
been a matter of course. " Against Thee, thee 
only, have I sinned I"* Against thee, my Maker, 
my Preserver, my benevolent Friend, my tender 
Father ! Thou hast made me, and clothed me, 
and fed me, and given me a heart to love, a soul 
to think, and a mind to understand : but I have 
not loved thee, nor thought of thee, nor known 
thee ! What wonder if the malignity that was 
rankling in my heart toward thee, should sorne- 

* Psalm li. 4. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. b\) 

times break out toward thine offspring ? For I 
now clearly perceive, that I could never have 
disliked any thing of thine, had I not had a secret 
dislike to thee. Of what good has my existence 
been to the world ? None, absolutely none. 
What has been the end of my actions ? To 
gratify self. Have I secured this end, paltry and 
miserable as I now perceive it to be ? No, cer- 
tainly not ; my experience up to this moment 
wrings from me the bitter acknowledgment, that 
I have succeeded only in making myself miserable. 
What then is the reason of my failure in the 
search after happiness ? What can it be but 
this, that God, the essence and source of happi- 
ness, has been left out of my system ? God 
alone is sufficient to fill and satisfy the soul which 
he has made : and I am destitute and empty of 
God. 

But, judging of this great Being by the indica- 
tions and glimmerings of the reason which he has 
lighted up within me, is it possible for a moment 
to entertain the thought that he can behold with 
complacency a creature like myself? Reason 
teaches me that he is just ; otherwise how could 
he govern the world which his consummate 
wisdom has created ? If he be just, shall he not 
punish one who has lived in the neglect of the 
most obvious and indispensable obligations to 
8* 



90 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

him ? My ignorance of him is no excuse ; for 
conscience witnesses that it has been in some 
measure a contented ignorance. I have not 
taken half the pains to know God that I have 
taken to know objects of trifling importance. 
My utmost efforts and desires have been so 
utterly incommensurate, I will not say, with the 
worthiness of the object, (for that is past my 
conception,) but even with the faint and imper- 
fect ideas which I might have formed of its 
worthiness, that to plead them in excuse would 
be the highest aggravation of my crime. If, 
then, justice be one of God's attributes, that at- 
tribute must be engaged to punish any unnatural 
and parricidal attempt to banish him from his 
own creation ; to depose him from his natural 
supremacy over my heart. Nor can I hope to 
escape with a slight punishment. Justice con- 
sists, not only in awarding retribution, but in 
suiting it to the nature and degree of the offense. 
Mine is an infinite offense ; committed against 
an infinite Being, to whom I was bound by infi- 
nite obligations. Shall not the retribution be 
infinite ? 

Besides, I have only to open my eyes, and look 
on what passes before them every day, to behold 
manifest tokens of the indignation of God against 
a "world that lieth in wickedness.' 7 Has he not 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 91 

hidden himself from our knowledge ? Are we not 
all abandoned to a sort of natural blindness and 
ignorance of all that pertains to him, and can 
there be a more decisive indication of his dis- 
pleasure ? This earth — who can help perceiving 
that it lies under circumstances of banishment 
and alienation from its Creator ? Would God 
form beings capable of knowing him, and then 
leave them in ignorance of him, unless they had 
in some way or other forfeited his favor ? Do not 
the various contradictory religions with which the 
world is filled, prove it to be in a state of the 
grossest ignorance and uncertainty about God ? 
What are all the infirmities and diseases which 
attack mankind, but a proof that sin, besides 
having ruined and debased the soul, has deranged 
and withered the body ? What are all the fierce 
altercations and demoniac passions which deso- 
late the earth, and make it like hell, but a mani- 
festation of the most just vengeance of God, 
which has left us to wreak our quarrel with him 
upon one another, so that one-half of the human 
race seems to be made for the scourge and execu- 
tioners of the other half ? What shall we say of 
death itself, but that it demonstrates our whole 
substance to be so contaminated, that it must be 
taken to pieces, and built up afresh, before it can 
be purged from the deadly contagion ? Add to 



92 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

this, that the ordinary commerce and discourse 
of men prove them to have an internal conscious- 
ness that all is not right between God and their 
souls. When a hypocrite would invest himself 
with the semblance of religion, does it ever occur 
to him to put on an air of cheerfulness and 
hilarity ? Does not the very inflection of his 
voice become whining and dolorous, as if that 
were the only tone suited to the occasion ? 
Whence is this, but to accommodate, himself to 
the general idea which men have of religion, 
that it is a burdensome and melancholy thing ? 
To what cause shall we attribute the almost uni- 
versal prevalence of sacrifices in the heathen 
world ? Whence could men derive the idea of 
propitiating God's favor hy the slaughter of an 
innocent animal ? Does not this custom imply 
the idea of an offended God ? Does it not origi- 
nate in a hidden sense of sin — in those secret 
gnawings of conscience which exist in the breast 
of every human being, and which lead them to 
think of God as an angry God ? as One whom it 
is necessary, by some means, to reconcile and 
appease ? 

But we may find ample proof of this fact, 
without going out of Christian countries : or, 
even out of the limited circle of our own friends. 
What occasions the prevalent idea, that religion 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 93 

is a melancholy thing — incompatible with youth 
and good spirits — a subject of too gloomy a cast 
to be admitted into general conversation ? Who 
has not witnessed the dead silence, the air of 
uneasiness and constraint, which the introduction 
of a serious reflection will sometimes spread over 
a whole company ? What a woful interruption 
to their hilarity ! Politeness itself will scarcely 
restrain a contemptuous smile, or a bitter sar- 
casm, at the expense of the meddler who ven- 
tured to obtrude the offensive and ill-timed obser- 
vation. He is directly marked as not one of 
them ; and should he again attempt to introduce 
the subject, he will be regarded, in every festive 
society, as an interloper. But, if we were satis- 
fied that there was peace between us and God, 
the mention of religion could never be offensive 
or ill-timed — because religion would then be 
nothing but the continual expression of mirth 
and gladness — the chosen and ever-pleasing topic 
of our most joyous moments. 

I have thrown my reflections into this brief 
order, without attempting to follow them out 
exactly as they occurred to me ; which, at this 
distance of time, would be impossible. They 
darted in upon my mind — first one, and then 
another, and sometimes many of them together, 
with a rapidity and force, which has made me 



94 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

since wonder that I retained the perfect posses- 
sion of my senses ; and yet with so much clear- 
ness, that the substance of them is now impressed 
on my memory with the distinctness of facts, 
rather than of thoughts. Nor can I say, whether 
this train of thought was the work of one night ; 
for the same reflections pursued me with little 
alteration for many days. These then, with 
many considerations of a similar nature, which I 
cannot now so distinctly recollect, but particu- 
larly the continual sense of my own gross igno- 
rance and enormous corruption, filled me with 
the deepest distress ; and compelled me to feel, 
to my great discomfort, that there was a separa- 
tion — a quarrel between God and his creature. 
I found, in my heart, a contrariety to him which 
I was unable to repress. Again, I asked myself 
— how shall I, a miserable reptile, sustain my 
controversy with the Omnipotent ? or stay his 
avenging arm, which is ready to visit on me the 
whole weight of his just indignation ? If I, who 
am accustomed to wickedness, and hardened in it, 
yet know enough of what is right, to abhor and 
despise myself; in what light must I appear 
to his all-holy and unclouded judgment ? Put 
the case now — that he should be willing, without 
satisfaction required, to pass over my offenses, to 
forgive me for what my own conscience (planted 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 95 

by him) condemns. "What would be the conse- 
quences of this clemency ? I should no longer 
reverence or esteem him : ceasing to be just, he 
would cease to be God in my eyes. I can no 
more suppose God without justice, than I can 
suppose a man without a soul. This attribute is 
essential to his character as Governor of the uni- 
verse. I should despise a fellow-creature, who 
should govern so unjustly and weakly, as to suffer 
criminals to escape without paying the penalty 
due to their crimes. Such a one's laws would be 
trampled on, and his person treated with as little 
regard, as was paid to the fabled Log sent down 
by Jupiter. 

Even then, upon the monstrous supposition that 
God, the just God, who has in so many ways mani- 
fested his indignation against sin, could, in my 
favor, be induced to slacken the reins of his gov- 
ernment, and throw away the sceptre af his justice 
— I should gain nothing by this, but the galling 
sensation of being under the yoke of One not 
greatly better than myself, or at least quite in- 
competent to his high office as Judge of the 
whole earth. 

On the other hand — if God punishes me, I am 
involuntarily led to fear and hate him. To love a 
being, whose glory is concerned in my destruction, 
is impossible. How shall I reconcile these two 



96 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

opposite ideas ? — the justice and ruercy of Him 
who is at once my Governor and Father ! If 
God pardon my sins, he is not a just God ; that 
is, he is no God at all. If he do not pardon 
sin, at least in those who desire to return to him, 
that is contrary to what Nature herself suggests 
to me of his goodness and niercy„ Each alterna- 
tive is unspeakably appalling. To have to do 
with a God who weakly swerves from the de- 
mands of justice ; or to be in the hands of One, 
who, by letting justice have her perfect work, 
should shut the door of mercy upon mankind. Yet 
the former of these alternatives appeared to me 
incomparably the most dreadful ! I had, within 
these few hours, acquired such a perception of 
the beauty of holiness, that the thought of an 
unholy God was worse than hell to me. I felt 
that I had rather God should pour outf on me 
all the vials of his wrath, than that, carried away 
by an unworthy softness and weakness, he should 
forgive and thereby encourage sin ; for sin ap- 
peared to me in so odious a light, that if it could 
not be purged out of God's universe without the 
destruction of mankind, who by sinning had de- 
ranged its order and defaced its beauty, my soul 
was almost ready to acquiesce in the general de- 
struction, and to perish in it, so that the order 
and beauty of God's universe might be restored. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 9-7 

To undergo eternal punishment was horrible, but 
to acknowledge an unholy God was more hor- 
rible still ! 

Besides all this, I plainly perceived, that, sup- 
posing even there were any means of restoration to 
God's favor — I should be continually falling from 
it again, unless a total change were wrought in 
my whole temper and disposition. I saw not how 
this change was to be effected. I had experi- 
enced so much of the weakness of my best reso- 
lutions, that had an offer of pardon been held out 
to me upon the condition of promising not to of- 
fend again, I should not have dared to make that 
promise. Sin "had separated between me and 
my God." This sin was not an act which I could 
lay aside — a habit which I could shake off ; but 
it was a nature. How was I to change my na- 
ture ? God, who made me at first, could alone 
correct the dreadful disease which had so mixed 
itself up with my whole constitution, that it 
seemed to form part of myself. But to this God 
— how should I apply ? or what reason had I to 
hope that he would not leave me to the conse- 
quences of my own willful rebellion ? 

In this dilemma it occurred to me, as a last ex- 
pedient, to turn my attention once more to that 
despised book, which had been long laid aside 
as incapable of affording me the least relief. 
9 



98 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

How different was the temper of my mind in 
which I now addressed myself to its perusal, from 
that in which I had read it at the commencement 
of my disbelief of Christianity ! I was no longer 
a proud sophist, triumphing in the strength and 
penetration of human reason, and in the compre- 
hensiveness of human knowledge. The contem- 
plation of my own ignorance, weakness, and wick- 
edness, had laid my pride in the dust. My eyes 
were opened to view myself as I really was — de- 
praved and blinded in my reason, judgment and 
understanding. And this is the process which 
must take place in the soul of every man, before 
he can pursue the search after truth in a right 
spirit. He must " become a fool, that he may be 
wise :"* not that he must part with any portion 
of his rational faculties, but, having been a fool 
all his life long, he must be led to discover and 
acknowledge his foolishness, before he can so ap- 
preciate wisdom, as to search for it with his whole 
heart. 

My attention was soon powerfully drawn by 
the promises which abound in the Bible, that God 
will reveal himself to all those who diligently seek 
him. When I read these, it struck me that the 
Bible itself offered an infallible test — more sure 

* 1 Corinthians iii. 18. 






THE TEST OF TRUTH. 99 

than all the arguments that ever were written for 
and against it, to prove whether it was indeed the 
word of God or the word of man. To own the 
truth, I was at first startled by the unqualified 
nature of these promises. The authors of these 
books, if impostors — and such I still inclined to 
believe them — had pledged themselves in a man- 
ner so unguarded as must inevitably lead to 
their detection. Here is an engagement, or a 
pretended engagement on God's part, to perform 
a miracle in favor of any one who chooses to ask 
it of him. For what can be a greater miracle 
than to give the knowledge of himself to a soul 
that is ignorant of him ? This is the very es- 
sence and substance of all miracles. Other won- 
ders and signs may be disputed. This must bring 
conviction. I cannot persuade myself that the 
Author of this Book will be able to redeem his 
pledge ; or to realize the expectations which he 
has so confidently held out. Nevertheless, I can 
but make the experiment. I shall, at least, for- 
ever rid myself of whatever doubts I may have 
entertained respecting the origin of the Bible. 
"Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall 
find." "He shall give his Holy Spirit to them 
that ask him." " Then ye shall seek me, and find 
me, when ye shall search after me with your whole 



100 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

heart."* Can words speak plainer? Well, I 
will ask — I will seek ! If what I ask is given 
me, if I find what I seek, what can I want more 
to convince me that the Bible is the Word of God ? 
If what I ask is not given, if I do not find what I 
seek, I may safely conclude that the Bible is a 
very awkwardly-contrived lie ; and as such, I will 
cast it from me with contempt. Be this, how- 
ever, as it may, I can lose nothing by making the 
trial ; possibly I may gain much. Whether he 
who made this promise be God or man, his rea- 
soning is full of judgment and good sense. For 
who is to give us the knowledge of God, if God 
himself either cannot, or will not give it to us ? 
Since "the father will not give his son a stone, 
when he asks bread," since evil men "know how 
to give good gifts to their children," how reason- 
able is the inference, that the good God must 
"know how to give good gifts unto his off- 
spring I" I will apply to my unknown — my hea- 
venly Father. I will ask him to give me the 
knowledge of himself. Will he mock me with a 
delusion? Will he present me with "a scor- 
pion," when I " ask him for bread "? I will im- 
plore him to teach me to believe what is right 
concerning him. Supposing the Bible account 

* Luke xi. 9 — 13 : Jeremiah xxix. 13. 



THE TEST 0E TRUTH. 101 

of him to be wrong, will he thrust this wrong 
belief upon me, when I am asking him for a 
right one ? Is he indeed so unlike a parent ? It 
was he that fashioned a father's heart, and im- 
planted a father's feelings. Is it too much to 
suppose that he himself has the heart — the feel- 
ings of a father ? 

The sense of my guilt held me back for a time. 
I feared that the great Being, whom I was about 
to address, would not listen to the prayer of one 
so worthless ; but I reflected that a state of sub- 
mission and desire could not be so displeasing to 
him, as one of carelessness and rebellion. To 
lay myself low at his feet with the deepest pros- 
tration, and to implore mercy, was all that I could 
do in my present ignorance ; and since mine was 
no longer a willful ignorance, I hoped that Infi- 
nite Benevolence might in time extricate me 
from it. 

One thing was sufficiently clear — man was not 
able to help me to what I wanted. God alone 
was able to assist me. It remained for me to 
try whether he were willing to save a soul that 
was perishing for " lack of knowledge." 

Impelled by these reflections, fearful and un- 
certain, but with uncontrolable — unutterable 
longings, I directed my supplications to the 
"unknown God." my Redeemer! the first 
9* 



102 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

breathings of my soul were not uttered in thy 
name. I rushed into the presence of my Judge, 
without a mediator ; but, doubtless, even then 
thy comeliness was thrown over the deformity of 
my soul, and the eye of my Father beheld me 
with pity for thy dear sake ! My prayer as- 
cended up to heaven fragrant with the incense of 
thy merits, though, the poor wretch who offered 
it thought to please God by leaving thee out of 
it ! Let thy goodness and mercy to me, en- 
courage other poor ignorant souls, who are 
groping their way to God in the dark, not to 
desist from the search till they have found him ; 
and having found him, they will find thee; and 
having found thee, they will hold thee fast : or 
rather, thou wilt hold them fast to all eternity ! 

Thus I set my face in good earnest, to seek 
the Lord my God. Every other employment 
was not only laid aside, but forgotten. I con- 
fessed to him, that I was unworthy of the least 
of his favors which he had heaped upon me : yet 
I ventured to tell him, that all these were of no 
value in my eyes, except as they encouraged me 
to hope for some further manifestation of his 
goodness. God ! (I dared not say my God — 
the word died upon my unhallowed lips)- — thou 
hast given me a wondrous power of knowing ; 
but there is but one thing worth knowing ; and 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 103 

of that I "am ignorant : — 1 would know thee. 
My capacity of knowledge is no better than a 
curse to me, while the only thing worthy to 
satisfy that capacity is hid from me. Thou — 
thou art the true object of knowledge ! let 
me know thee — or let me know nothing ! Thou 
hast given me a power of loving ; but in vain I 
look round for something to love. Thou canst 
fill my heart — and none but thou. But thee I 
cannot find : and there is some wretched prin- 
ciple within me which will not let me love thee. 

Thou, who art all lovely, restore me to the 
natural perception of a creature ! Bring back 
my alienated affections to their true centre, — that 

1 may see and love him who gave me birth. 
Thou hast made me capable of boundless long- 
ings and desires — but the whole earth would not 
satisfy those longings ; no, nor the whole uni- 
verse, unless I could find thee in it. Oh ! why 
didst thou put within me such high and restless 
aspirings, if I was indeed made for so low an end 
as to live and die without knowing thee ? Thou 
gavest me the appetite of hunger — and lo ! ever 
since I was born, thou hast supplied me with 
food to satisfy that hunger. Dost thou care for 
the wants of the body ? and wilt thou not pro- 
vide for the wants of the soul ? Now my soul 
hungers, which it never would have done, hadst 



104 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

not thou formed it capable of spiritual appetites. 
Wilt not thou give the food that must satisfy my 
sonl? Will the God whose goodness prevents 
every bodily want, leave me to perish in my 
spiritual necessities ? The power of thought — 
the ardent and ineffable breathings of my mind, 
are but so many aggravations of my misery. 
The very light of reason only serves to make my 
darkness visible, to discover to me how low I am 
fallen ! These thy great — thy peculiar blessings, 
are just so many curses to me so long as I am 
shut out from thy knowledge and love. I know 
that I am not worthy ; but nature whispers to 
me that thou art merciful. I see no way of be- 
coming reconciled to thee ; but reason teaches 
me, that thou may est be able to find out a way, 
though I cannot. Life is not life, unless I know 
the Giver of it. All the time that I have lived 
without thee in the world, I seem to have been 
dead ; more senseless than a stock or stone — 
more brutish than the beasts which perish ! 

Such things as these I groaned out of the full- 
ness of my heart : for I was seldom able to speak. 
My deep self-abhorrence, and the inexpressible 
ardency of my desires, choked up the way to 
every outward expression of my feelings. I 
often lay prostrate on the ground for hours to- 
gether — not from any superstitious preference of 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 105 

that attitude ; but because the sense of my own 
unfitness to come into God's presence quite over- 
whelmed me. I should have sunk into the earth, 
had that been possible ; so great was the pros- 
tration of soul occasioned by the perpetual con- 
sciousness that God was present, and that I was 
unworthy. 

In this manner I gave myself wholly up to 
seeking for my Creator. For days and weeks I 
however sought him apparently in vain. My 
blindness and uncertainty seemed to increase 
daily. I was often on the point of abandoning, 
in despair, an effort so unpromising — and wished 
for death, as the only thing which could termi- 
nate my afflicting suspense ; but then it occurred 
to me that the Bible has nowhere promised an 
immediate answer to prayer. The experiment, 
therefore, was not a fair one — unless it was per- 
severed in : nay, I recollected that so far from 
promising an immediate answer, it gives repeated 
intimations, that we may perhaps have to wait a 
long time for the accomplishment of our desires. 
It warns men that they must " tarry the Lord's 
leisure" — that "they must pray, and not faint :"* 
besides this, I could not deny, that God had long 
waited patiently for me, and borne with my care- 

* Psalm xxvii. li; Luke xviii. 1. 



106 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

less unconcern. It was reasonable that I, in my 
turn, should wait patiently for God ; and not 
abandon the search, when perhaps a little fur- 
ther perseverance would end in the realization 
of my most sanguine wishes. I knew, too, that I 
was in pursuit of an object worthy of the intense- 
ness of my desires ; and which, when found, would 
amply recompense any labor I might spend in 
seeking it. I therefore continued my entreaties, 
that God would graciously vouchsafe to open 
my understanding to know him, and my heart to 
love him as a rational creature ought to do, 

I waited not in vain. God at length revealed 
himself to my understanding in a way that abun- 
dantly surpassed my expectations — I say to my 
understanding ; for this was no rapturous trance 
of enthusiasm, but the sober and rational con- 
viction of every faculty of my mind. I hope 
none of my readers will think that I attribute 
too much power, or too much benevolence to the 
Supreme Being, when I assert that he who first 
gave me understanding, did enlighten that under- 
standing in a manner which I was sensible no 
efforts of my own could have done ; and which 
yet was so clear — so consistent — so satisfactory, 
that every former act of my reason, in compari- 
son with this, seemed like the incoherent ravings 
of delirium ! If, however, they doubt — let them 



THE TEST OP TRUTH. 107 

try the experiment for themselves : let them not 
suppose that this was a sudden flash of con- 
viction, — no, it was a process as collected and 
deliberate as that by which the mind first scruti- 
nizes and then embraces the propositions of 
mathematical science. My eyes were opened to 
discern the glory and excellence of the Scriptures, 
and their amazing superiority to every human 
composition. I perceived that they carried, 
within their own pages, a witness to their Divine 
Origin. Convinced by this internal evidence, I 
recognized in the Bible the revelation of God to 
his fallen creatures. In this book alone, I saw 
perfect justice and perfect mercy — perfect holi- 
ness and perfect clemency, reconciled in a way 
worthy of the Deity ; and though I know that 
this internal evidence cannot be perceived but by 
those, whose eyes God himself opens to behold 
the wondrous things out of his law ; yet trusting 
that he will, in some instances, thus " confirm the 
word" of his servant, I will endeavor to comprise, 
in as short a space as possible, the points which 
struck me as most worthy of observation during 
this (to me) memorable perusal of the Sacred 
Oracles. Again I remind my readers, that the 
correctness of my assertions can only be proved 
by bringing them to the touchstone of Truth. 
If God did indeed teach me, he must be also 



108 THE TEST OP TRUTH. 

willing to instruct them. Let them try whether 
he is able to keep this promise : " Call unto me. 
and I will answer thee ; and show thee great 
and mighty things which thou knowest no: 

1. The character given of God in the Scrip- 
tures, appeared to me such, that no finite mind 
could have conceived or portrayed it. Here is 
nothing of the imperfection — the inconsistency — 
the littleness of humanity. All is majesty and 
infinity ! Xo one attribute obscures or encroaches 
upon another. Here — and here only, we have a 
God glorious in holiness — inflexible in justice — 
that will not look upon iniquity : and yet slow to 
anger and of tender mercy ; justifying the un- 
godly, and teaching sinners in the way. "Well 
and truly did the Apostle describe the scope of 
the Gospel in these terms : " And this is the mes- 
sage we have heard of God, and declare unto 
you, that God is light; and in him is no dark* 

ss at a.U."f KTo — there is no darkness in the 
Scripture representation of God ; but when men 
attempt to form conceptions of his character, 
for want of the comprehensive vision which 
mighty a subject requires, they cannot look at 
one of his attributes without losing sight of 
another. Thus they can form some faint idea of 

* Jer. xxxiii. 3. j I John i. 5. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 109 

his justice, or of his mercy, separately, though 
even that is a justice, and a mercy, limited and 
defective like their own. But their narrow minds 
cannot grasp the United Idea ! They form some 
rude conjectures of the separate parts ; but the 
mighty, the consistent whole, is quite beyond 
their largest thought. Therefore it is that some 
fancy to themselves a God who is all justice, and 
no mercy ; while far the greater part imagine 
him to be all mercy and no justice ; or at least 
fondly persuade themselves that he will put his 
justice by, whenever it happens to interfere with 
their convenience. God is merciful, deluded man ! 
but his mercy is not like thy mercy ; it is neither 
a weak, nor an unholy principle ; nor will it avail 
thee aught, if thou diest in thy sins ! 

Thus man cannot describe one of God's perfec- 
tions without marring another ; but the Scripture 
takes them all into the account. His justice — his 
mercy — his holiness — his compassion, all meet in 
perfect unison ; and their jarring claims are sweetly 
reconciled in Christ Jesus. This was exactly what 
I wanted, but had scarcely hoped to find. This 
was the God whom I had longed to call my 
God ! Now, I could say my God ! Now I 
could call him Father and Friend! Now I 
had a forgiveness extended to me, which far from 
involving the horrible compromise of God's holi- 
10 



110 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

ness which I had fancied necessary before he could 
pardon me, was itself "the beauty of holiness ;"' 
— was such a manifestation of God's sanctity and 
of his hatred to sin, that in the very act of show- 
ing mercy, his justice and his holiness were most 
gloriously vindicated. 

2. The character of Jesus caused me fresh trans- 
ports of admiration every time I contemplated 
it. How many writers have wearied themselves 
in the attempt to describe a perfect character ! 
and how miserably have they all failed ! Now 
here was an undertaking ten thousand times more 
arduous : so bold that the very conception of it 
could scarcely have entered into the limited capa- 
city of man. It was no less than this — to deli- 
neate the character of One who should be at 
once " perfect man and perfect God M — " God 
manifest in the flesh." 

And how do they attempt to embody this mag- 
nificent conception ! What splendid description 
shall convey to us the boundless idea, or astound 
us into a belief of its reality ! What learned 
definitions shall mark the points of the character 
they had chosen to portray ! Do they seek to 
dazzle us, by placing their hero in an exalted 
rank, and surrounding him with every circum- 
stance of magnificence ? Do they make him run 
a long career of glory adorned with the highest 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. Ill 

advantages of honor, valor, and learning ? Quite 
the contrary, They give us the very plain and 
simple history of a man, who passed his life in a 
poor and mean condition, surrounded by enemies 
who spared no pains to crush and disgrace him, 
who would have been overjoyed to discern the 
least defect in his extraordinary character. He 
is born in a manger ; educated as a carpenter's 
son ; lives in poverty and contempt as an itine- 
rant preacher ; and dies an infamous death be- 
tween two thieves. The ignominy of his life and 
death, the low esteem in which he should be held 
by all, were portrayed beforehand with so much 
exactness in the sacred books of the Jews, (books 
confided to the care of the Jewish priests, his 
bitter enemies), that many infidels have been 
converted to Christianity, by comparing the pro- 
phetic writings with the Gospel History ; and 
the Jewish Rabbins, unable to evade their force, 
have been constrained to prohibit the reading of 
one chapter in particular (Isaiah liii.), under the 
severest denunciations. The coincidence between 
the prophetic life and character of Jesus, and his 
real life and character, struck me forcibly. These 
were not prophecies of which it could be pleaded, 
that they were written after the events they de- 
scribed : for not only have we certain proof to 
the contrary, but we know that the Jews would 



112 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

be very glad of such a plea, and yet they have 
never ventured to make it. Nor can it be said 
that the accomplishment was forced and straitened 
to suit the prophecy ; for the most striking points 
of coincidence consists of facts over which an 
impostor could exercise no control, or traits of 
character which were very unlikely to have oc- 
curred to him. Again, supposing the Gospel to 
be an invention, here was another difficulty of no 
common magnitude which its authors had to en- 
counter. Not only had they to describe this per- 
fect twofold character, but to make it naturally 
fall in and accord with divers accounts scattered 
here and there, through a series of books written 
at very different times-, and in very different styles 
of description. Surely if the Gospel be a lie, it 
is the most ingenious lie that ever was invented, 
and its writers must have had longer and clearer 
heads than fall to the lot of impostors in our 
times. 

But to return. I scrutinized again and again 
every part of this divine character, represented 
with so much plainness, and under such unfavorable 
circumstances. But after all my scrutiny, I could 
not find, I will not say a fault, but not even so 
much as an inconsistency in the character of Jesus. 
To describe a character without any glaring de- 
fects, is a comparatively easy task ; but to describe 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 113 

one which should be consistent in all its parts, 
appeared to me utterly impossible to a being so 
inconsistent as man : especially a character so 
singular as this, whose distinguishing points are 
directly contrary to the distinguishing points of 
man's character in general. Like the Pharisees, 
(though I trust in a far different spirit,) I lay in 
wait to " catch Jesus in his words."* Often did 
I fancy that I had met with something at which 
I might reasonably be offended. But that Holy 
Spirit, who had already begun to take of the 
things of Jesus and show them unto me, always 
led me in the end to perceive that the offense was 
occasioned by my own gross ignorance and viti- 
ated judgment of spiritual things. As each diffi- 
culty was successively cleared up, my admiration 
rose to ecstacy, and my doubts were lost in a deep 
and loving confidence, till at length, after many 
of these trials, I could, when any thing seemed 
strange to me, go to Jesus himself, and sitting 
down at his feet as a little child, expect from him 
a solution of the mystery. I no longer exclaimed, 
this is contrary to reason, I will not believe ; but 
this surpasses my comprehension, I cannot under- 
stand ; Lord, teach thy foolish and ignorant crea- 
ture what this means ! The more I studied this 

* Mark xii. 13. 
10* 



114 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

divine character, the more I grew up, as it were, 
into its holiness and simplicity, the more my un- 
derstanding was enabled to shake off those slavish 
and sinful prejudices, which had hindered me from 
appreciating its excellence. Truly his "words 
were dearer to me than my necessary food."* He 
became unto me "wisdom and righteousness, and 
sanctification and redemption, "f He was my 
"all in all." I did not want to have any knowl- 
edge, goodness, or strength, independently of 
him. I had rather be "accepted in the beloved," 
than received (had that been possible) upon the 
score of my own merits. I had rather walk lean- 
ing on his arm, than have a stock of strength 
given me to perform the journey alone. To learn, 
as a fool, of Christ, this was better to me than to 
have the knowledge of an angel to find out things 
for myself. Nor is there any thing in all this 
contrary to reason. For as the highest wisdom 
of a little child is to learn implicitly of its teacher, 
so I, having found a teacher and guide, whose in- 
telligence was above mine or the angels, not as 
the man is above the child, but "as he who 
maketh a house is greater than the house," it 
*vas my business to learn implicitly of him, 
and to submit my mind to his, secure that I 

Job xxiii. 12. f 1 Corinthians l. 30. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 115 

should thus attain the highest end of a created 
being. 

But I turn back for a moment to the reflections 
which possessed me, when the first beauty, con- 
sistency and majesty of the character of Jesus, 
began to be evident to my mind. I asked myself, 
who had invented this character ? A company 
of ignorant fishermen ? Or supposing that we 
will not allow them to be the authors, still the 
language and style of the writings may prove to 
us, that they were the compositions of unlearned 
men, incapable of any effort of intellect beyond 
that required to tell a plain unvarnished tale. 
But grant even that they were men of learning 
and genius : still it appeared to me, that to be- 
lieve the life and character of Jesus to be the in- 
vention of any merely human intellect, required 
a far greater stretch of credulity than to believe 
that he was " God manifest in the flesh." Those 
indeed who can persuade themselves that this 
world and all its curiously-contrived machinery, 
were the work of a blind chance, may conclude 
that the character of Jesus was traced by a mere 
mortal pen. But those who attribute any thing 
to a divine power, must, we should think, per- 
ceive in this manifest tokens of a divine power. 
No intellect short of an infinite intellect could 
have conceived the mighty thought. No pen un- 



116 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

inspired by that intellect could have embodied 
that thought in the life of an obscure individual. 
Were I to assure you that the immortal work of 
Newton was composed by a child at the breast, 
you would smile at my simplicity. But I am 
ready to weep at the violence you offer to your 
reasoning faculties, when you can lay your hand 
upon the life of Christ, and pronounce that to be 
the production of any human mind. Yet remem- 
bering that your reason is blinded by the deceit- 
fulness of sin, and that I was once as blind as 
yourself, not even this excess of prejudice can 
damp my hopes respecting you. I lift up my 
heart to God, who opens the blind eyes. In the 
mean time, though now you see no beauty in 
Jesus that you should desire him, yet I beseech 
you, for the sake of truth and candor, to give his 
character in the Bible your serious consideration. 
There is a divine power and excellency in it, 
which may find its way to your heart when you 
least expect it. And if ever "God shines in your 
heart, to give you the knowledge of the glory of 
God," that glory will be revealed to you "in the 
face of Jesus Christ."* 

3. The Scripture character of man struck me 
as differing exceedingly from that given in any 

* See 2 Cor. iv. 6. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 117 

other book. It was evidently no portrait of his 
own painting. Every other book represents man 
more or less as he ought to be. The Bible alone 
depicts him as he really is. All the systems of 
all the philosophers, all the religions of all na- 
tions, are founded upon the supposition, that the 
heart of man is not altogether corrupt, that a 
little mending and patching only are wanting to 
bring it to perfection. One lauds the dignity and 
rectitude of human nature. Another talks of the 
sincerity of our endeavors, and the efficacy of our 
resolutions. What say the Scriptures ? " The 
heart of man is deceitful above all things and 
desperately wicked."* If you patch new cloth 
upon the old garment, you will only make the 
rent worse. Of our dignity they say, the crown 
is fallen from our head : woe unto us, that we 
have sinned. Of our rectitude and sincerity, 
"ye are estranged from the womb : ye go astray 
as soon as ye are born, speaking lies."f Of our 
endeavors, "without me, ye can do nothing."! 
Of our resolutions, "ye are not sufficient of your- 
selves to think any thing as of yourselves. "§ 
They stoop not to flatter the pride and vanity of 
man by false and hollow encouragements. They 
go to the root of the evil. They tell him the 

* Jer. xvii. 9. f Psalm lviii. 3. 

J John xv. 5. $2 Cor. iiL 5. 



118 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

plain truth ; that he has neither rectitude to 
choose, nor sincerity to love, nor energy to re- 
solve, nor strength to execute, that which is good. 
" They are sottish children, and have not known 
me : they are wise to do evil, but to do good they 
have no knowledge."* TThat I had been led to 
discover of my own heart, corresponded with the 
declarations of Scripture, as exactly as when " a 
man beholdeth his natural face in a glass." I 
will say more. This book discovered to me so 
many new enormities of which I was before igno- 
rant, that I could not help exclaiming at every 
page : Surely He only who searcheth the heart 
could so accurately describe its dark and intricate 
movements ! Surely none but He who ma'de man 
could know so well what was in man ! 

Xow, in any case of bodily disease, it incon- 
ceivably enhances our confidence in a physician, 
if, while he describes to us the symptoms of our 
case, we perceive that our feelings exactly tally 
with every part of his description ; we indulge a 
reasonable hope, that he, who has so thoroughly 
acquainted himself with the symptoms of our 
complaint, will be able to suggest a remedy. 
Thus it was with my spiritual malady. I found 
every particular of my sufferings, my necessities, 

* Jer. iv. 22. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 119 

rny blindness, obduracy, and depravity of heart, 
laid down in the Bible with such extraordinary 
and felicitous precision of language, that from 
that time my own words seemed quite inadequate 
to the description of my case. I could recollect 
none but scripture words, when I wanted to 
define my feelings : all other words seemed poor, 
feeble, and unmeaning. As a person who has 
long been laboring under sensations which he is 
unable to describe, if he lights upon an exact de- 
lineation of them, will exclaim — " Ah ! that is 
exactly what I wanted to say ; only I could not 
find words to express it in" — so in reading the 
Scripture description of the sin and ignorance of 
man, I was continually forced to cry out, " Yes — 
my experience is the very counterpart of this ! 
only it is expressed with a force and appropriate- 
ness, which no language of mine could have 
reached." It will not appear wonderful, that, 
lighting upon this astonishingly accurate defini- 
tion of my wants and distresses, I should be dis- 
posed to give a very serious and attentive con- 
sideration to the remedy pro]^psed for them. 

4. I was greatly struck by the Scripture ac- 
count of the nature or essence of sin. Other 
codes and systems content themselves with repro- 
bating a few of its exterior indications ; the Bible 
goes straight to the heart, and drags its hidden 



120 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

motives to the light ; other systems make the 
essence of sin to consist in the violation of our 
duties to man : the Bible makes it consist in the 
violation of our duty to God. These speak of 
the neglect of human, or natural laws and rights ; 
the Bible allows of no law but the law of God — 
no right but the right which God has in us as 
his creatures. It tells us that all sin is comprised 
in our alienation from Him in whom all subordi- 
nate duties and relations centre. " Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thine heart.'' 
This is the first and great commandment. " Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is the second; 
like auto the first, dependent on it, naturally and 
necessarily flowing from it.* To violate the first 
and great command, this is sin. To violate the 
second is the inevitable consequence of breaking 
the first ; for no one ever yet hated his brother, 
who did not first hate God. " The carnal mind 
is enmity against God."f This is the deadly 
root whence every lesser abomination proceeds. 
All that human ingenuity has ever effected has 
been to lop off some of the minor branches, to 
prune a few excrescences, which have immediately 
sprouted forth with redoubled vigor. The Bible 
lays the axe to the root of the tree. The cata- 

* Matt. xxii. 37-39. t Rom » viii « *• 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 121 

logue of our crimes always begins with this dam- 
ning article, and is usually summed up in it,. — " In 
transgressing and lying against the Lord, and 
departing away from our God:"* this is the sum 
and substance of our offense. This separates 
between us and God : this has brought the curse 
into every one of our dwellings. Other sins are 
but the puny offspring of this horrid and unna- 
tural progenitor. 

The Bible statement is the only one in the least 
consonant with unbiased reason and sound sense. 
For if there be a God at all, he must have a 
greater right in his creatures than any other 
being can possibly have. To serve and love him 
supremely must be that law, which alone deserves 
to be called the law of nature ; and if men 
universally love and delight in any thing else 
more than in him, they stand universally con- 
demned of living in a state of contrariety to the 
law of nature ; that is, they frustrate the true 
end of their nature ; they are guilty of that black 
and unnatural dereliction from duty, which con- 
stitutes the essence and malignity of sin. 

5. The Scripture remedy for sin, and all the 
evils it has brought in its train, was so consum- 
mately adapted to my necessities, that this cir- 

* Isaiah lix. 13. 
11 



122 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

curnstance would have alone sufficed to rivet my 
attention. Sensible that I was in a state of 
alienation from God, I was afraid of his just 
vengeance, and jet more afraid, that in pardon- 
ing sin he should prove a weak and unjust being 
like myself. If I rejected the idea of an angry 
God, an unholy God seemed my only alternative. 
I saw not how infinite compassion itself could 
save me, but at the expense of infinite justice 
and purity. Those only who have known the 
agony of feeling themselves condemned by God 
and their own conscience, can comprehend the 
joy with which I hailed the glad tidings, "that 
God can be just, and yet the Justifier of him who 
believeth in Jesus. "* My wretched and unna- 
tural state with regard to God consisted in three 
particulars. I was ignorant of God — averse from 
God — and afraid of God. Jesus Christ revealed 
the Father to me — took away the enmity, and 
opened a way of access with boldness and confi- 
dence. I understood how "God was in Christ, 
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing 
their trespasses unto them."f the depth, the 
wisdom, the harmony, of my Father's counsels, as 
"the Spirit took of them," for Christ's sake, 
" and showed them unto me I" the exceeding 

* Rom. iii. 25, 26. f 2 Cor - v - 19 « 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 123 

glory and excellence of my Father's character, as 
I studied it in him, "who is the brightness of the 
Father's image, in whom dwelt all the fullness of 
the Godhead bodily."* — Then I perceived how 
the doctrine of " the cross, while to some it is a 
stumbling-block, and to others foolishness, is 
nevertheless to those who are saved, the power 
of God and the wisdom of God."*)* In the incar- 
nation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus 
Christ, I beheld the love of God manifested, his 
law exalted, his justice satisfied, and my salvation 
complete. I knew by my own joyful experience, 
"that God has given unto us eternal life, and 
that this life is in his Son. "J 

Poor infidel, whoever thou art, my brother or 
sister in sin and misfortune ! cast not these pages 
from thee as the ravings of enthusiasm. Scoff at 
them I know thou wilt, unless the Spirit of God 
arrest thy heart as he did mine. But remember 
that they are written by one who once held the 
same sentiments with thyself. Consider that so 
wonderful a revolution in these sentiments could 
not have been effected and persisted in, without 
some reasons for such a change. I have told 
thee how I came to the knowledge of what I 
believe to be the truth. 

* Heb. i. 3; Col. ii. 9. -f 1 Cor - *• 23 > 24 - 

t 1 John v. 11 



124 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

The experiment I made use of was simple and 
easy, and in my case, conclusive. Would it not 
be more candid on thy part to try the same test, 
than to scoff at what thou hast not tried. All I 
ask is, that when any thing I say appears mystical 
or extravagant, thou wouldst try for thyself, 
whether a persevering use of the "Test of Truth" 
may not make it appear plain and reasonable. 

The grand difference which I found between 
the remedy offered by the Bible, and that of every 
other religion in the world, was this. They all 
hold out to us insufficient motives for action, and 
direct us to an insufficient source of strength. 
The motive of our virtue, is to be self-esteem or 
the applause of others. Our strength is to be 
derived from our own resolutions or reasonkigs. 
The Bible, on the contrary, forbids us to think 
highly of ourselves, or to " receive honor one of 
another:" it commands us to seek "the honor 
which cometh of God only."* The love of our 
reconciled God in Christ Jesus, sweetly rekindling 
our long-extinguished affections to him, is to be 
the motive of all our actions. Now this motive 
will last as long as the love of God lasts : that is, 
to all eternity. Human motives are perishable. 
The praise we so eagerly covet, disappoints our 

* Rom. x. 3, 10 j Phil. ii. 3 ; John v. 44. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 125 

expectation when it is obtained. And what self- 
esteem can quiet a wounded conscience ? Be- 
sides, the Bible motive is worthy a rational being. 
Human motives are such, that those who are most 
influenced by them, are ashamed to own them. 
Love, divine love, purifies, and ennobles, and 
satisfies the soul : it makes the source of action 
pure, and then the actions themselves must be so. 
Human motives debase the soul, and render it 
mean and selfish : they must in the end prove un- 
satisfactory : they pollute the source of actions, 
and make men like painted sepulchres, fair 
without, but hollow and rotten within. And as 
for strength, while the Bible assures us that all 
human efforts and resolutions are frail as the 
bruised reed, and transitorv as the morning dew ; 
it informs us, that "the grace of Jesus is sufficient 
for us," and that we "can do all things through 
Christ which strengtheneth us."* I applied for 
this grace and this strength. I did not apply in 
vain. 

One peculiarity in the Scripture remedy struck 
me as very remarkable. This was the pains taken 
to pour contempt upon all human pride and 
glory. As we fell by pride and independence, 
we must be restored by humility and dependence. 

* Cor. xii. 9; Phil. iv. 13. 
11* 



123 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

The Scriptures leave us not one single thing in 
ourselves whereof to glory. The "wise man 
must not glory in his wisdom, nor the strong man 
in his might, nor the rich man in his riches."* 
All boasting is forever excluded. If we come to 
God, it must be as sinners, through Christ. If 
we receive heaven, it must be as the purchase of 
Christ's merits, not of our own deservings. From 
first to last, the Christian is taught to say, — 
M Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but unto thy 
nams give glory."*)" 

6. During this reading, I discovered the reason 
which had so long prevented me from receiving 
the truth as it is in Jesus, and from finding in the 
Scriptures those treasures of wisdom and gladness 
which they contain. " They that be whole," says 
this divine philosophy, "need not a physician, but 
they that are sick. "J So long as I knew not that 
my soul was altogether infected with the dreadful 
malady of sin, it was not possible for me to ap- 
preciate His love, who came to save me from my 
sins. But when the Holy Spirit taught me that 
I was utterly undone and unclean, then the 
knowledge of Him who "is able to save to the 
uttermost," and whose "blood cleanseth from all 
sin," became the only cordial which could relieve 

* Jer. ix. 23. f Psalm cxv. 1. J Matt. ix. 12. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 12*7 

my fainting spirits. From that moment I ceased 
to stumble at the doctrine of the Cross. I was a 
sinner, I wanted a Saviour. In Jesus Christ I 
found all my wants satisfied. I fled for refuge to k 
this hope, which had been thus unexpectedly set 
before me. Into his hands I have committed my 
spirit, and I know " that he his able to keep that 
which I have committed to him."* Thus will 
you, when God shows you that you are vile and 
condemned and hateful in his sight, experience 
the sweetness of the name of Jesus. 

7. The Scriptures afford me a clue to many 
things which have embarrassed the most pene- 
trating understandings. One of these things was 
the reason, why it happens that this book appears 
full of absurdities and contradictions to an uncon- 
verted person ; while the believer views it as a 
glorious whole, all whose parts are in perfect 
unison, and explain and illustrate each other. 
And this is the reason : — " The natural man un- 
derstandeth not the things of the Spirit of God, 
for they are foolishness to him ; neither can he 
know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned." " For the God of this world hath 
blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest 
the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto 

* 1 Tim. i. 12. 



:± ; THE TEST Off TEETH. 






them. 7 ** The doctrines of Scripture, which had 
before appeared to me an inexplicable mass of 
confusion and contradictions, were now written 
on my understanding with the clearness of a sun- 
beam. For. saith the same Scripture, "God, 
who commanded the light to shine out of dark- 
Hess, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light 
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face 

Abore all. that once abhorred doctrine of the 
divinity of Chr" now become exceedizi_ 

pre me From my inmost soul I recog- 

nized J ziy Lord and my God. Of this 

change in my views I .so found an account in 
B 'pture. "No man can say that :he 

1. but by the Holy Gh« s: I Nominal 
Christians may indeed call him Lord. Lord, with 
their lips 7 and in the externals of a formal devo- 
tion, but their hearts cannot go along with their 
professions until the Spirit of God convince 

I was sensible that a vast revolution had been 
effected in my temper. ^nd disposition. 

For this I should hare been at a loss to account 
had not the same Bible furnished me with a solu- 



* 1 Cor. : 14 : ; :r. iv. -l f 2 Cor - ■*- *• 

I I ( zLL 3. 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 129 

tion of the mystery. " If any man be in Christ 
Jesus, he is a new creature ; old things are poised 
away ; behold all things are become new."* 

The external evidences of Christianity, though 
I now perceived all their force, were no longer 
necessary to my conviction. I need no proofs to 
convince me that the sun is shining at mid-day. 
I needed none to convince me that the love of my 
reconciled God and Father was shining full upon 
my soul, with an enlightening, purifying, and 
vivifying influence. When objections assailed me, 
I found myself much in the situation of the man 
who opposed, to all the cavils of the Jews, this 
simple, yet irresistible answer : " Whether these 
things be as ye say, I know not ; one thing I 
know, that whereas I was blind, now I see."\ 

Having formed my opinions solely by the Word 
of God, my attention was naturally attracted by 
the various sects of Christianity with which this 
land of toleration abounds. Bat in every sect, which 
took the pure unadulterated Bible for its standard, 
I perceived a small number of persons who desired 
no other happiness than the love of God. These, 
I observed, to whatever denomination they be- 
longed, loved and understood one another, but 
were often hated and misconstrued by the rest 

* 2 Cor. v. 17. t John x. 25. 



130 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

of mankind. If they differed as to some points 
of minor importance, they were however unani- 
mous upon the grand essentials of religion. In 
this one point especially, I found them to be all 
perfectly agreed among themselves, and perfectly 
opposed to all other men : they, with one consent, 
ascribed to Jesus the whole glory of their salva- 
tion ; acknowledging no merit in themselves which 
could possibly interest God in their favor. 

At the same time I could not help perceiving 
that in every persuasion (my own not excepted), 
the many were Christians only in name, and 
in reality believed in God no more than the pro- 
fessed freethinker believes in him. For this one 
thing is certain : if they did really believe in 
the Bible, they would be more intent upon escap- 
ing the threatenings and gaining the promises of 
the Bible, than they are upon the riches, honor, 
pleasures, or learning, of this world. But the 
contrary is the fact. They are more intent upon 
the riches, honor, pleasures, or learning, of this 
world, than upon escaping the threatenings, or 
gaining the promises, of the Bible. Therefore, 
they do not believe the threatenings or promises 
of the Bible. If they believed them, they would 
act upon them. By not acting upon them, they 
prove that they do not believe them. To believe 
really in God, is to be convinced that he is some- 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 131 

thing better than the world, and better than 'self. 
It implies, therefore, a hearty and entire renun- 
ciation of the world and self; and a hearty and 
entire devotion of ourselves to God, as to some- 
thing incomparably better. 

In the few, then, of every denomination, I re- 
cognized the true Church of Christ. At first the 
small number of real Christians perplexed me, 
and I anxiously exclaimed, Are there so few that 
be saved ? But I remembered that even this cir- 
cumstance added its testimony to the veracity of 
the Scripture statement, which always represents 
the Church of Christ as a little flock,* exposed 
to the hatred and derision of the larger portion 
of mankind, who should continue obstinate in 
their monstrous rebellion against the Most High. 
Besides this, when I reflected on the mightiness 
of the change which must take place in every 
sinner's heart before he could sincerely love God, 
and the necessity of his submitting to be viewed 
with contempt and disgust by many who before 
had loved and courted him. I rather marveled 
at the miracle of divine grace, by which any are 
saved, than inquired, why so few ? But I found 
from the prophetic writings that the number of 
Christ's enemies shall not always exceed that 

* Luke xii. 32. 



132 THE TEST OF TRUTH. 

of his friends. The time is not far distant when 
"the earth shall be filled with the glory of the 
Lord, as the waters cover the sea."* 

I have endeavored briefly to recapitulate the 
chief reflections which occurred to me while I 
was reading the Bible, with the help (as I verily 
believe) of the Spirit of Jesus. From that time 
I have continued to sit at the feet of Jesus, and 
to hear his word ; taking him for my teacher and 
guide in things temporal as well as spiritual. 
He has found in me a disciple so slow of compre- 
hension, so prone to forget his lessons, and to act 
in opposition to his commands, that w^ere he not 
infinitely meek and lowly in heart, he would long 
ago have cast me off in anger. But he still con- 
tinues to bear with me, and give me line upon 
line, and precept upon precept. And I am cer- 
tain that he will never leave me nor forsake me ; 
for though I am variable and inconstant, " with 
him there is no variableness, neither shadow of s 
turning, "f 

In narrating the means, by which I was drawn 
forth out of the horrible abyss of infidelity, my 
design has been to give some idea of the process, 
which must take place in every sinner's heart, be- 
fore he can know, or desire to know the God who 

* Isaiah xi. 9. f James i. 17. 



THE TEST OP TRUTH. 133 

gave him being. And thus it must be with you. 
You must be roused to a lively sense of the im- 
portance of knowing God ; must be convinced 
that you have hitherto lived in a state of blind- 
ness and enmity against him ; you must learn 
that all your fancied wisdom is mere folly in his 
sight ; and must be ready to receive the truth as 
he is pleased to reveal it. Instead of insolently 
dictating the way in which God shall deal with 
his offending creature, you must lay down the 
arms of your rebellion, and accept of pardon and 
peace upon his terms. When these dispositions 
are wrought in your heart (and they can be 
wrought only by a Divine Power), then the Lord 
will reveal himself to you, show you the truth of 
his Everlasting Gospel, and bring the salvation 
of Jesus home to your heart. I ask you not to 
believe any thing upon my word. That were 
indeed foolish, when you cannot take it upon 
God's word. But I beseech you to make trial 
of his word. Reject it not till you have put 
it to the test I have proposed to you. Examine 
this for yourselves. Know whether the God of 
Scripture be, as he is there styled, "the God who 
heareth prayer." And we "who have tasted that 
the Lord is gracious," will not cease to pray for 
you, that " the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
the Father of Glory, may give unto you the 



134 



THE TEST OF TRUTH. 



Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowl- 
edge of Mm : the eyes of your understanding 
being enlightened, that ye may know what is the 
hope of his calling, and what the riches of the 
glory of his inheritance in the saints ; and what 
is the exceeding greatness of his power to us- 
ward who believe, according to the working of 
His Mighty Power." Amen. — Eph i. 11—19. 



THE END. 






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